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Corners 

OldNEwYoRk- 


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REEF 

POINT 

GARDENS 

LIBRARY 


The  Gift  of  Beatrix  Farrand 

to  the  General  Library 
University  of  California,Berkeley 


Nooks  &  Corners 

of 
Old    NEW    Yo»k 


Nooks  &  Corners 
of 

Old  NEW  Yopk 

By 
Charles    Hemftreet 

Illustrated 
By 

E,    C.  Peixotto 


New  York 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
MDCCCXCIX 


COPYRIGHT,    1899 

BY   CHARLES  SCRIBNER's  SONS 

NEW    YORK 


LANDSCAPE 
ARCHITECTURE 


J- 

•  3 


INTRODUCTORT  NOTE 

THE  points  of  interest  referred 
to  in  this  book  are  to  be  found 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  Island  of 
Manhattan. 

Settlements  having  early  been 
made  in  widely  separated  parts  of 
the  island,  streets  were  laid  out  from 
each  settlement  as  they  were  needed 
without  regard  to  the  city  as  a 
whole ;  with  the  result  that  as  the 
city  grew  the  streets  lengthened  and 
those  of  the  various  sections  met  at 
every  conceivable  angle.  This  re 
sulted  in  a  tangle  detrimental  to  the 
city's  interests,  and  in  1807  a  Com 
mission  was  appointed  to  devise  a 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

City  Plan  that  should  protect  the 
interests  of  the  'whole  community. 

A  glance  at  a  city  map  will  show 
the  confusion  of  streets  at  the  lower 
end  of  the  island  and  the  regularity 
brought  about  under  the  City  Plan 
above  Houston  Street  on  the  east, 
and  Fourteenth  Street  on  the  west 
side. 

The  plan  adopted  by  the  Com 
mission  absolutely  disregarded  the 
natural  topography  of  the  island, 
and  resulted  in  a  city  of  straight 
lines  and  right  angles. 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

No.  7  State  Street 6 

Fraunces'  Tavern 1 1 

The  "Jack  Knife,"  Gold  and 

Platt  Streets 23 

Golden  Hill  Inn 24 

Cell  in  the  Prison  under  the 

Hall  of  Records  ....  35 
Statue  of  Nathan  Hale,  City 

Hall  Park 38 

No.  1 1  Reade  Street,  where 

Aaron  Burr  had  an  office  .  40 

The  Tombs 41 

Park  Street,  with  Church  of 

the  Transfiguration  ...  44 

Hudson  and  Watts  Streets  .  .  55 

Grave  of  Charlotte  Temple  .  .  62 


LIST      OF      ILLUSTRATIONS 

Tomb  of  Alexander  Hamilton  .  66 
Washington's  Pew,  St.  Paul's 

Chapel 76 

Montgomery's  Tomb  ...  77 

A  House  of  Other  Days  ...  79 

"  Murderers'  Row "  ....  97 

Old  Houses,  Wiehawken  Street  112 
Looking  South  from  Minetta 

Lane  114 

Old  Theological  Seminary, 

Chelsea  Square  ....  126 

Church  of  Sea  and  Land  .  .  .  135 

Bone  Alley 139 

Milestone  on  the  Bowery  .  .  143 

Entrance  to  Marble  Cemetery  .  152 

College  of  the  City  of  New  York  1 86 

Gate  of  Old  House  of  Refuge  .  188 
The  Little  Church  Around  the 

Corner 192 

Milestone  on  Third  Avenue  .  204 


viii 


NOOKS  AND  CORNERS 
OF  OLD  NEW  YORK 


NOOKS  AND  CORNERS 
OF  OLD  NEW  YORK 


O 


I 


N  the  centre  building  of  the  row  Fort 
which  faces  Bowling  Green  Park 


on    the  south  there  is  a  tablet  bearing 
the  words  : 


THE  SITE  OF  FORT  AMSTERDAM, 

BUILT  IN    1626. 
WITHIN  THE  FORTIFICATIONS 

WAS  ERECTED  THE  FIRST 

SUBSTANTIAL  CHURCH  EDIFICE 

ON  THE  ISLAND  OF  MANHATTAN. 

IN  1787  THE  FORT 

WAS  DEMOLISHED 

AND  THE  GOVERNMENT  HOUSE 

BUILT  UPON  THIS  SITE 


This  was  the  starting-point  of  the 
settlement  which  gradually  became  New 
York.  In  1614  a  stockade,  called  Fort 


Dutch  West 
India  Co. 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Manhattan,  was  built  as  a  temporary 
place  of  shelter  for  representatives  of  the 
United  New  Netherland  Co.,  which  had 
been  formed  to  trade  with  the  Indians. 
This  company  was  replaced  by  the 
Dutch  West  India  Co.,  with  chartered 
rights  to  trade  on  the  American  coast, 
and  the  first  step  towards  the  forming  of 
a  permanent  settlement  was  the  building 
of  Fort  Amsterdam  on  the  site  of  the 
stockade. 

In  1664  New  Amsterdam  passed  into 
British  possession  and  became  New 
York,  while  Fort  Amsterdam  became 
Fort  James.  Under  Queen  Anne  it 
was  Fort  George,  remaining  so  until 
demolished  in  1787. 

On  the  Fort's  site  was  built  the  Gov 
ernment  House,  intended  for  Washing 
ton  and  the  Presidents  who  should  fol 
low  him.  But  none  ever  occupied  it  as 
the  seat  of  government  was  removed 
to  Philadelphia  before  the  house  was 
completed.  After  1801  it  became  an 


OF     OLD     NEW     YORK 

office  building,  and  was  demolished  in 
1815  to  make  room  for  the  present 
structures. 

The  tiny  patch  of  grass  at  the  start-  Bowling 
ing-point  of  Broadway,  now  called  Bowl 
ing  Green  Park,  was  originally  the  centre 
of  sports  for  colonists,  and  has  been  the 
scene  of  many  stirring  events.  The 
iron  railing  which  now  surrounds  it  was 
set  up  in  1771,  having  been  imported 
from  England  to  enclose  a  lead  eques 
trian  statue  of  King  George  III.  On 
the  posts  of  the  fence  were  representa 
tions  of  heads  of  members  of  the  Royal 
family.  In  1776,  during  the  Revolu 
tion,  the  statue  was  dragged  down  and 
molded  into  bullets,  and  where  the  iron 
heads  were  knocked  from  the  posts  the 
fracture  can  still  be  seen. 

When   the   English  took  possession  The 

r     i  11-1-  Battery 

of  the  city,  in  1664,  the  Jhort  being  re 
garded  as  useless,  it  was  decided  to  build 


NOOKS     AND     CORNERS 

a  Battery  to  protect  the  newly  acquired 
possession.  Thus  the  idea  of  the  Bat 
tery  was  conceived,  although  the  work 
was  not  actually  carried  out  until 
1684. 

Beyond  the  Fort  there  was  a  fringe 
of  land  with  the  water  reaching  to  a 
point  within  a  line  drawn  from  Water 
and  Whitehall  Streets  to  Greenwich 
Street.  Sixty  years  after  the  Battery 
was  built  fifty  guns  were  added,  it  having 
been  lightly  armed  up  to  that  time. 

The  Battery  was  demolished  about 
the  same  time  as  the  Fort.  The  land 
on  which  it  stood  became  a  small  park, 
retaining  the  name  of  the  Battery,  and 
was  gradually  added  to  until  it  became 
the  Battery  Park  of  to-day. 

Castle  A  small  island,  two  hundred  feet  off 

the  Battery,  to  which  it  was  connected 
by  a  drawbridge,  was  fortified  in  1 8 1 1 
and  called  Fort  Clinton.  The  arma 
ment  was  twenty-eight  32-pounders, 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

none  of  which  was  ever  fired  at  an  en 
emy.  In  1822  the  island  was  ceded 
back  to  the  city  by  the  Federal  Govern 
ment — when  the  military  headquarters 
were  transferred  to  Governor's  Island — 
and  became  a  place  of  amusement  under 
the  name  of  Castle  Garden.  It  was  the 
first  real  home  of  opera  in  America. 
General  Lafayette  was  received  there  in 
1824,  and  there  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse 
first  demonstrated  the  possibility  of  con 
trolling  an  electric  current  in  1835. 
Jenny  Lind,  under  the  management  of 
P.  T.  Barnum,  appeared  there  in  1850. 
In  1855  it  became  a  depot  for  the  re 
ception  of  immigrants;  in  1890  the 
offices  were  removed  to  Ellis  Island, 
and  in  1 896,  after  many  postponements, 
Castle  Garden  was  opened  as  a  public 
aquarium. 

State  Street,  facing  the  Battery,  dur-  State 
ing  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  and 
the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

was  the  fashionable  quarter  of  the  city, 
and  on  it  were  the  homes  of  the  wealthy. 
Several  of  the  old  houses  still  survive. 
No.  7,  now  a  home  for  immigrant  Irish 
girls,  was  the  most  conspicuous  on  the 
street,  and  is  in  about  its  original  state. 
At  No.  9  lived  John  Morton,  called  the 
"  rebel  banker  "  by  the  British,  because 
he  loaned  large  sums  to  the  Continental 
Congress.  His  son,  General  Jacob 


7  Sfafe  Street 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Morton,  occupied  the  mansion  after  his 
marriage  in  1791,  and  commanded  the 
militia.  Long  after  he  became  too  in 
firm  to  actually  command,  from  the 
balcony  of  his  home  he  reviewed  on  the 
Battery  parade  grounds  the  Tompkins 
Blues  and  the  Light  Guards.  The 
veterans  of  these  commands,  by  legis 
lative  enactment  in  1868,  were  incorpo 
rated  as  the  "  Old  Guard/* 

On  the  building  at  4   and   6    Pearl  The 

~  0  0  •  i  ,        "Stadhuis 

Street,  corner  State  Street,  is  a  tablet 
which  reads  : 


1636  1897 

ON  THIS  SITE  STOOD  THE   "  STADHUIS  " 

OF  NEW  AMSTERDAM ERECTED    1636 

THIS  TABLET  IS  PLACED  HERE  IN   LOVING  MEMORY 

OF  THE  FIRST  DUTCH  SETTLERS   BY  THE 

HOLLAND  DAMES  OF  THE  NEW 

NETHERLANDS  AND  THE 

KNIGHTS  OF  THE    LEGION    OF  THE  CROWN 
LAVINIA 

KONIGIN 


It    was    set  up   October  7,    1897,  and 
marks  the  supposed  site  of  the  first  City 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Hall.  What  is  claimed  by  most  au 
thorities  to  be  the  real  site  is  at  Pearl 
Street,  opposite  Coenties  Slip. 

Whitehall  Street  was  one  of  the  ear 
liest  thoroughfares  of  the  city,  and  was 
originally  the  open  space  left  on  the 
land  side  of  the  Fort. 

The  Beaver  Street  was  first  called  the  Bea- 

Beaver's  >       r»     i  T  v      i  •   i 

Path  vers    "ath.     It  was  a  ditch,  on  either 

side  of  which  was  a  path.  When  houses 
were  built  along  these  paths  they  were 
improved  by  a  rough  pavement.  At 
the  end  of  the  Beaver's  Path,  close  to 
where  Broad  Street  is  now,  was  a  swamp, 
which,  before  the  pavements  were  made, 
had  been  reclaimed  and  was  known  as 
the  Sheep  Pasture. 

Petticoat  Marketfield  Street,  whose  length  is 
less  than  a  block,  opens  into  Broad 
Street  at  No.  72,  a  few  feet  from  Bea 
ver  Street.  This  is  one  of  the  lost 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

thoroughfares  of  the  city.  Almost  as 
old  as  the  city  itself,  it  once  extended 
past  the  Fort  and  continued  to  the  river 
in  what  is  now  Battery  Place.  It  was 
then  called  Petticoat  Lane.  The  first 
French  Huguenot  church  was  built  on 
it  in  1688.  Now  the  Produce  Exchange 
cuts  the  street  off  short  and  covers  the 
site  of  the  church. 

Through  Broad  Street,  when  the  town  Broad 
was  New  Amsterdam,  a  narrow,  ill- 
smelling  inlet  extended  to  about  the 
present  Beaver  Street,  then  narrowed  to 
a  ditch  close  to  Wall  Street.  The  water 
front  was  then  at  Pearl  Street.  Several 
bridges  crossed  the  inlet,  the  largest  at 
the  point  where  Stone  Street  is.  An 
other  gave  Bridge  Street  its  name.  In 
1 660  the  ways  on  either  side  were  paved, 
and  soon  became  a  market-place  for 
citizens  who  traded  with  farmers  for 
their  products,  and  with  the  Indians 
who  navigated  the  inlet  in  their  canoes. 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  locality  has  ever  since  been  a  cen 
tre  of  exchange.  When  the  inlet  was 
finally  filled  in  it  left  the  present 
"  Broad  "  Street. 

Where  Beaver  Street  crosses  this 
thoroughfare,  on  the  northwest  corner, 
is  a  tablet : 


TO  COMMEMORATE  THE  GALLANT  AND   PATRIOTIC 

ACT  OF  MARINUS  WILLETT  IN   HERE  SEIZING 

JUNE  6,    1775,   FROM  THE  BRITISH   FORCES  THE 

MUSKETS  WITH  WHICH   HE  ARMED  HIS 

TROOPS.        THIS  TABLET  IS  ERECTED  BY 

THE    SOCIETY  OF  THE   SONS  OF  THE 
REVOLUTION,   NEW    YORK,   NOV.    12,    1892 


Fraunces' 
Tavern 


On  one  side  of  the  tablet  is  a  bas-relief 
of  the  scene  showing  the  patriots  stop 
ping  the  ammunition  wagons. 

Fraunces'  Tavern,  standing  at  the 
southeast  corner  of  Broad  and  Pearl 
Streets,  is  much  the  same  outwardly  as 
it  was  when  built  in  1700,  except  that 
it  has  two  added  stories.  Etienne  De 


Lancey,  &  Huguenot  nobleman,  built  it 
as  his  homestead  and  occupied  it  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  It  became  a  tav 
ern  under  the  direction  of  Samuel 
Fraunces  in  1762.  It  was  Washing 
ton's  headquarters  in  1776,  and  in  1783 
he  delivered  there  his  farewell  address 
to  his  generals. 

Pearl  Street  was  one  of  the  two  early  Pearl 
roads    leading  from  the   Fort.     It   lay 
along  the  water  front,  and  extended  to 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

a  ferry  where  Peck  Slip  is  now.  The 
road  afterwards  became  Great  Queen 
Street,  and  was  lined  with  shops  of 
store-keepers  who  sought  the  Long 
Island  trade.  The  other  road  in  time 
became  Broadway. 

On  a  building  at  73  Pearl  Street,  fac 
ing  Coenties  Slip,  is  a  tablet  which  reads : 


The  First 
City  Hall 


THE  SITE  OF  THE 
FIRST  DUTCH  HOUSE  OF  ENTERTAINMENT 

ON  THE  ISLAND  OF  MANHATTAN 
LATER  THE  SITE  OF  THE  OLD  "STADT  HUYS" 

OR  CITY  HALL 

THIS  TABLET  IS   PLACED  HERE    BY 

THE    HOLLAND  SOCIETY  OF    NEW  YORK 

SEPTEMBER,    1890 


This  is  the  site  of  the  first  City  Hall  of 
New  Amsterdam,  built  1642.  It  stood 
by  the  waterside,  for  beyond  Water 
Street  all  the  land  has  been  reclaimed. 
There  was  a  court  room  and  a  prison  in 
the  building.  Before  it,  where  the  pil 
lars  of  the  elevated  road  are  now,  was  a 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

cage  and  a  whipping-post.  There  was 
also  the  public  "  Well  of  William  Cox." 

Beside  the  house  ran  a  lane.  It  is 
there  yet,  still  called  Coenties  Lane  as  in 
the  days  of  old.  But  it  is  no  longer 
green.  Now  it  is  narrow,  paved,  and 
almost  lost  between  tall  buildings. 

Opposite  Coenties  Lane  is  Coenties 
Slip,  which  was  an  inlet  in  the  days  of 
the  Stadt  Huys.  The  land  about  was 
owned  by  Conraet  Ten  Eyck,  who  was 
nicknamed  Coentje.  This  in  time  be 
came  Coonchy  and  was  finally  vulgar 
ized  to  "  Quincy."  The  filling  in  of 
this  waterway  began  in  1835  and  the 
slip  is  now  buried  beneath  Jeanette 
Park.  The  filled-in  slip  accounts  for 
the  width  of  the  street.  For  the  same 
reason  there  is  considerable  width  at 
Wall,  Maiden  Lane  and  other  streets 
leading  to  the  water  front. 

At  8 1  Pearl  Street,  close  by  Coenties  First  Priming 

.        -  .  Press  in  the 

Slip,  the  first  printing-press  was  set  up  colony 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

by  William  Bradford,  after  he  was  ap 
pointed  Public  Printer  in  1693.  A 
tablet  marks  the  site,  with  the  inscrip 
tion  : 


Fire  of 

1835 


ON  THIS  SITE 

WILLIAM   BRADFORD 

APPOINTED 

PUBLIC  PRINTER 

APRIL   10,   A.    D.    1693 

ESTABLISHED  THE  FIRST 

PRINTING  PRESS 

IN  THE 

COLONY  OF  NEW  YORK 
ERECTED  BY  THE 

NEW  YORK 

HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 

APRIL   10,   A.    D.    1893 

IN   COMMEMORATION  OF 

THE  200TH  ANNIVERSARY 

OF  THE  INTRODUCTION 

OF  PRINTING  IN 

NEW  YORK 


Across  the  way,  on  a  warehouse  at  88 
Pearl  Street,  is  a  marble  tablet  of  unique 
design,  to  commemorate  the  great  fire 
of  1835,  which  started  in  Merchant 
Street,  burned  for  nineteen  hours,  ex- 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

tended  over  fifty   acres  and  consumed 
402  buildings. 

Directly  through  the  block  from  this 
point  is  Cuyler's  Alley,  a  narrow  way 
between  the  houses  running  off  Water 
Street.  Although  it  is  a  hundred  years 
old  the  only  incident  connected  with  its 
existence  that  has  crept  into  the  city's 
history,  is  a  murder.  In  1823,  a  Bos 
ton  merchant  was  waylaid  and  murdered 
for  his  money,  and  was  dragged  through 
this  street  for  final  disposition  in  the 
river,  but  the  murderer  made  so  much 
noise  in  his  work  that  the  constable 
heard  him  and  came  upon  the  abandoned 
corpse. 

Through  a  pretty  garden  at  the  back  stone 
of  the    Stadt   Huys,   Stone   Street  was 
reached.     It  was  the  first  street  to  be 
laid  with   cobble-stones   (1657),  and  so 
came  by  its  name,  which  originally  had 
been  Brouwer  Street. 
15 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Delmonico's  establishment  at  Beaver 
and  William  Streets  is  on  the  site  of 
the  second  of  the  Delmonico  restaurants. 
(See  Fulton  and  William  Streets.) 

Flat  and  Exchange  Place  took  its  name  from 

Hin  the    Merchants'    Exchange,  which   was 

completed  in  William  Street,  fronting  on 
Wall,  in  1827  (the  present  Custom 
House).  Before  that  date  it  had  been 
called  Garden  Street.  From  Hanover 
to  Broad  Street  was  a  famous  place  for 
boys  to  coast  in  winter,  and  the  grade 
was  called  "Flat  and  Barrack  Hill." 
Scarcely  more  than  an  alley  now,  the 
street  was  even  narrower  once  and  was 
given  its  present  width  in  1832. 

Wall  Wall   Street  came  by  its  name  nat 

urally,  for  it  was  a  walled  street  once. 
When  war  broke  out  between  England 
and  Holland  in  1653,  Governor  Peter 
Stuyvesant  built  the  wall  along  the  line 
of  the  present  street,  from  river  to  river. 

16 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

His  object  was  to  form  a  barrier  that 
should  enclose  the  city.  It  was  a  wall  of 
wood,  twelve  feet  high,  with  a  sloping 
breastwork  inside.  After  the  wall  was 
removed  in  1699,  the  street  came  to  be 
a  chief  business  thoroughfare. 

A  new  City  Hall,  to  replace  the  Stadt  Federai 
Huys,  was  built  in  1699,  at  Nassau 
Street,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Sub- 
Treasury  building.  In  front  of  the 
building  was  the  cage  for  criminals, 
stocks  and  whipping-post.  When 
independence  was  declared,  this  build 
ing  was  converted  into  a  capitol  and  was 
called  Federal  Hall.  The  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  read  from  the 
steps  in  1776.  President  Washington 
was  inaugurated  there  in  1789.  The 
wide  strip  of  pavement  on  the  west  side 
of  Nassau  Street  at  Wall  Street  bears 
evidence  of  the  former  existence  of 
Federal  Hall.  The  latter  extended 
across  to  the  western  house  line  of  the 

17 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

present  Nassau  Street,  and  so  closed 
the  thoroughfare  that  a  passage-way  led 
around  the  building  to  Nassau  Street. 
When  the  Sub-Treasury  was  built  in 
1836,  on  the  site  of  Federal  Hall, 
Nassau  Street  was  opened  to  Wall,  and 
the  little  passage-way  was  left  to  form  the 
wide  pavement  of  to-day. 

where  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  1789,  lived 

Ham^ko"  m  a  house  on  the  south  side  of  Wall 
Lived  Street  at  Broad.  His  slayer,  Aaron 

Burr,  then  lived  back  of  Federal  Hall 

in  Nassau  Street. 

The  Custom  House  at  William  Street 
and  Wall  was  completed  in  1842.  At 
this  same  corner  once  stood  a  statue  of 
William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham.  In 
1776,  during  the  Revolution,  the  statue 
was  pulled  down  by  British  soldiers,  the 
head  cut  off  and  the  remainder  dragged 
in  the  mud.  The  people  petitioned  the 
Assembly  in  1766  to  erect  the  statue  to 

18 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Pitt,  as  a  recognition  of  his  zealous  de 
fence  of  the  American  colonies  and  his 
efforts  in  securing  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act.  At  the  same  time  provi 
sion  was  made  for  the  erection  of  the 
equestrian  statue  of  George  III  in 
Bowling  Green.  The  statue  of  Pitt  was 
of  marble,  and  was  erected  in  1770. 

The  Tontine  Building  at  the  north-  Tontine 
west  corner  of  Wall  and  Water  Streets  House 
marks  the  site  of  the  Tontine  Coffee 
House,  a  celebrated  house  for  the  inter 
change  of  goods  and  of  ideas,  and  a  po 
litical  centre.  It  was  a  prominent  insti 
tution  in  the  city,  resorted  to  by  the 
wealthy  and  influential.  The  building 
was  erected  in  1794,  and  conducted  by 
the  Tontine  Society  of  two  hundred  and 
three  members,  each  holding  a  $200 
share.  Under  their  plan  all  property 
was  to  revert  to  seven  survivors  of  the 
original  subscribers.  The  division  was 
made  in  1876. 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Meal  Close  to  where  the  coffee  house  was 

Market  . 

built  later,  a  market  was  set  up  in  the 
middle  of  Wall  Street  in  1709,  and  be 
ing  the  public  market  for  the  sale  of 
corn  and  meal  was  called  the  "  Meal 
Market."  Cut  meat  was  not  sold  there 
until  1740.  In  1731  this  market  be 
came  the  only  public  place  for  the  sale 
and  hiring  of  slaves. 

Trinity  Church  has  stood  at  the  head 
of  Wall  Street  since  1 697.  Before  1 779 
the  street  was  filled  with  tall  trees,  but 
during  the  intensely  cold  winter  of  that 
year  most  of  them  were  cut  down  and 
used  for  kindling. 

The  ferry  wharf  has  been  at  the  foot 
of  the  street  since  1694,  when  the  water 
came  up  as  far  as  Pearl  Street.  It  was 
here  that  Washington  landed,  coming 
from  Elizabethport  after  his  journey 
from  Virginia,  April  23,  1789,  to  be  in 
augurated. 

The  United  States  Hotel,  Fulton,  be- 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

tween  Water  and  Pearl  Streets,  was  built 
in  1823  as  Holt's  Hotel.  It  was  the 
headquarters  for  captains  of  whaling 
ships  and  merchants.  A  semaphore,  or 
marine  telegraph,  was  on  the  cupola,  the 
windmill-like  arms  of  which  served  to 
indicate  the  arrival  of  vessels. 


On  the  building  at  the  northeast  cor-  Middle 
ner  of  Nassau  and  Cedar  Streets  is  a  church 
tablet  reading : 


HERE  STOOD 
THE  MIDDLE  DUTCH   CHURCH 

DEDICATED  A.    D.    1729 
MADE  A  BRITISH   MILITARY   PRISON    1776 

RESTORED   1790 
OCCUPIED  AS  THE  UNITED  STATES  POST-OFFICE 

1845—1875 
TAKEN   DOWN    I  882 


This  church  was  a  notable  place  of 
worship  ;  the  last  in  the  city  to  repre 
sent  strict  simplicity  of  religious  service 
as  contrasted  with  modern  ease  and  ele 
gance.  The  post-office  occupied  the 
building  until  its  removal  to  the  struct- 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

ure  it  now  occupies.  The  second  home 
of  the  Middle  Dutch  Church  was  in 
Lafayette  Place. 

Pie  Woman's  Nassau  Street  was  opened  in  1696, 
when  Teunis  de  Kay  was  given  the 
right  to  make  a  cartway  from  the  wall 
to  the  commons  (now  City  Hall  Park). 
At  first  the  street  was  known  as  Pie 
Woman's  Lane. 


The  Where    Maiden    Lane  is   there    was 

Maiden's  r 

Lane  once  a  narrow   stream   or  spring  water, 

which  flowed  from  about  the  present 
Nassau  Street.  Women  went  there  to 
wash  their  clothing,  so  that  it  came  to 
be  called  the  Virgin's  Path,  and  from 
that  the  Maiden's  Lane.  A  blacksmith 
having  set  up  a  shop  at  the  edge  of  the 
stream  near  the  river,  the  locality  took 
the  name  of  Smit's  V'lei,  or  the  Smith's 
Valley,  afterwards  shortened  to  the 
V'lei,  and  then  readily  corrupted  to 
"  Fly."  It  was  natural,  then,  when  a 

22 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK. 


market  was  built  on  the  Maiden's  Lane, 
from  Pearl  to  South  Streets,  to  call  it 
the  Fly  Market.  This  was  pulled 
down  in  1823. 

On  Gold  Street,  northwest  corner  of  The 
Platt  Street,  is  a  wedge-shaped  house  of 
curious  appearance.  It  is  best  seen  from 
the  Platt  Street  side.  When  this  street 
was  opened  in  1834  by  Jacob  S.  Platt, 
who  owned  much  of  the  neighboring 
land  and  wanted  a  street  of  his  own,  the 
house  was  large  and 
square  and  had  been 
a  tavern  for  a  great 
many  years.  The 
new  street  cut  the 
house  to  its  present 
strange  shape,  and 
it  came  to  be  called 
the  "  Jack-knife." 

Golden  Hill,  cele 
brated  since  the  time 


Gold  fc  Plitt  5t»- 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Golden  Hill  of  tne  Dutch,  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the 
high  ground  around  Cliff  and  Gold 
Streets.  Pearl  Street  near  John  shows 
a  sweeping  curve  where  it  circled  around 
the  hill's  base,  and  the  same  sort  of 
curve  is  seen  in 
Maiden  Lane  on  the 
south  and  Fulton 
Street  on  the  north. 
The  first  blood  of 
the  Revolution  was 
shed  on  this  hill 
in  January,  1770, 
after  the  British  sol 
diers  had  cut  down 
a  liberty  pole  set  up 
by  the  Liberty  Boys. 
The  fight  occurred 
on  open  ground  back 
of  an  inn  which  still 
stands  at  122  Wil 
liam  Street,  and  is 
commemorated  in  a 
tablet  on  the  wall  of 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

a  building  at  the  corner   of   John  and 
William  Streets.    It  reads  : 


«  GOLDEN    HILL 
HERE,  JAN.    l8,    1770 

THE  FIGHT  TOOK  PLACE  BETWEEN  THE 

"SONS  OF  LIBERTY"  AND  THE 

BRITISH  REGULARS,  I  6TH  FOOT 

FIRST  BLOODSHED  IN  THE 

WAR  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 


The  inn  is  much  the  same  as  in  early 
days,  except  that  many  buildings  crowd 
about  it  now,  and  modern  paint  has 
made  it  hideous  to  antiquarian  eyes. 

On  the  east  side  of  William  Street,  a 
few  doors  south  of  Fulton,  John  Del- 
monico  opened  a  dingy  little  bake  shop 
in  1823,  acted  as  chef  and  waiter,  and 
built  up  the  name  and  business  which 
to-day  is  synonymous  with  good  eating. 
In  1832  he  removed  to  23  William 
Street.  Burned  out  there  in  1835,  ne 
soon  opened  on  a  larger  scale  with  his 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

brother  at  William  and  Beaver  Streets, 
on  which  site  is  still  an  establishment 
under  the  Delmonico  name.  In  time 
he  set  up  various  places — at  Chambers 
Street  and  Broadway ;  Fourteenth  Street 
and  Fifth  Avenue ;  Twenty-sixth  Street 
and  Broadway,  and  finally  at  Forty- 
fourth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue. 

John  street  jonn  Street  Church,  between  Nassau 
and  William  Streets,  was  the  first  Meth 
odist  Church  in  America.  In  1767  it 
was  organized  in  a  loft  at  120  William 
Street,  then  locally  known  as  Horse 
and  Cart  Street.  In  1768  the  church 
was  built  in  John  Street.  It  was  rebuilt 
in  1817  and  again  in  1841.  John 
Street  perpetuates  the  name  of  John 
Harpendingh,  who  owned  most  of  the 
land  thereabout. 

John  street        At  what  is  now  17,  19  and  21    John 
Street,  in  1767  was  built  the  old   John 
Street    Theatre,    a    wooden     structure, 
26 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

painted  red,  standing  sixty  feet  back 
from  the  street  and  reached  by  a  cov 
ered  way.  An  arcade  through  the  house 
at  No.  17  still  bears  evidence  of  the 
theatre.  The  house  was  closed  in  1774, 
when  the  Continental  Congress  recom 
mended  suspension'  of  amusements. 
Throughout  the  Revolutionary  War, 
however,  performances  were  given,  the 
places  of  the  players  being  filled  by 
British  officers.  Washington  frequently 
attended  the  performances  at  this  thea 
tre  after  he  became  President.  The 
house  was  torn  down  in  1798. 

The  site  of  the  Shakespeare  Tavern 
is  marked  by  a  tablet  at  the  southwest 
corner  of  Nassau  and  Fulton  Streets. 
The  words  of  the  tablet  are: 


ON  THIS  SITE  IN  THE 
OLD  SHAKESPEARE  TAVERN 

WAS  ORGANIZED 

THE    SEVENTH    REGIMENT 

NATIONAL  GUARD,   S.    N.    Y. 

AUG.    25,    1824 

27 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

This  tavern,  low,  old-fashioned,  built  of 
small  yellow  bricks  with  dormer  win 
dows  in  the  roof,  was  constructed  before 
the  Revolution.  In  1808  it  was  bought 
by  Thomas  Hodgkinson,  an  actor,  and 
was  henceforth  a  meeting-place  for  Thes 
pians.  It  was  resorted  to — in  contrast 
to  the  business  men  guests  of  the  Ton 
tine  Coffee  House — by  the  wits  of  the 
day,  the  poets  and  the  writers.  In  1824 
Hodgkinson  died,  and  the  house  was 
kept  up  for  a  time  by  his  son-in-law, 
Mr.  Stoneall. 


First  At  the  southwest  corner  of  Beekman 

Canton  .... 

Hall  and  Nassau   Streets  was  built,  in  1830, 

the  first  home  of  the  Mercantile  Li 
brary,  called  Clinton  Hall.  In  1820 
the  first  steps  were  taken  by  the  mer 
chants  of  the  city  to  establish  a  reading 
room  for  their  clerks.  The  library  was 
opened  the  following  year  with  700  vol 
umes.  In  1823  the  association  was  in 
corporated.  It  was  located  first  in  a 
28 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

building  in  Nassau  Street,  but  in  1826 
was  moved  to  Cliff  Street,  and  in  1830 
occupied  its  new  building  in  Beekman 
Street.  De  Witt  Clinton,  Governor  of 
the  State,  had  presented  a  History  of 
England  as  the  first  volume  for  the  li 
brary.  The  new  building  was  called 
Clinton  Hall  in  his  honor.  In  1850, 
the  building  being  crowded,  the  Astor 
Place  Opera  House  was  bought  for 
$250,000,  and  remodeled  in  1854  into 
the  second  Clinton  Hall.  The  third 
building  of  that  name  is  now  on  the  site 
at  the  head  of  Lafayette  Place. 

The  St.  George  Building,  on  the  St.  George's 
north  side  of  Beekman  Street,  just  west 
of  Cliff  Street,  stands  on  the  site  of  St. 
George's  Episcopal  Church,  a  stately 
stone  structure  which  was  erected  in 
181 1.  In  1814  it  was  burned  ;  in  1816 
rebuilt,  and  in  1845  removed  to  Ruth 
erford  Place  and  Sixteenth  Street,  where 
it  still  is.  Next  to  the  St.  George  Build- 
29 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

ing  is  the  tall  shot-tower  which  may  be 
so  prominently  seen  from  the  windows 
of  tall  buildings  in  the  lower  part  of  the 
city,  but  is  so  difficult  to  find  when 
search  is  made  for  it. 


Barnum's 
Museum 


Original 

Park 

Theatre 


Barnum's  Museum,  opened  in  1842, 
was  on  the  site  of  the  St.  Paul  Build 
ing,  at  Broadway  and  Ann  Street.  There 
P.  T.  Barnum  brought  out  Tom 
Thumb,  the  Woolly  Horse  and  many 
other  curiosities  that  became  celebrated. 
On  the  stage  of  a  dingy  little  amphi 
theatre  in  the  house  many  actors  played 
who  afterwards  won  national  recogni 
tion. 

The  original  Park  Theatre  was  built 
in  1798,  and  stood  on  Park  Row,  be 
tween  Ann  and  Beekman  Streets,  facing 
what  was  then  City  Hall  Park  and  what 
is  now  the  Post  Office.  It  was  200  feet 
from  Ann  Street,  and  extended  back  to 
the  alley  which  has  ever  since  been 

3° 


OF     OLD     NEW     YORK 

called  Theatre  Alley.  John  Howard 
Payne,  author  of  "  Home,  Sweet 
Home,"  appeared  there  for  the  first 
time  on  any  stage,  in  1809,  as  the 
"Young  American  Roscius."  In  1842 
a  ball  in  honor  of  Charles  Dickens  was 
given  there.  Many  noted  actors  played 
at  this  theatre,  which  was  the  most  im 
portant  in  the  city  at  that  period.  It  was 
rebuilt  in  1820  and  burned  in  1848. 

At    the    junction    of  Park  Row  and  First  Brick 

_  _  ,  ,         _,.  n     -i  j       Presbyterian 

Nassau  Street,  where  the  Times  Build-  church 
ing  is,  the  Brick  Presbyterian  Church 
was  erected  in  1768.  There  was  a 
small  burying-ground  within  the  shadow 
of  its  walls,  and  green  fields  stretched 
from  it  in  all  directions.  It  was  sold  in 
1854,  and  a  new  church  was  built  at 
Fifth  Avenue  and  Thirty-seventh  Street. 

Within  a  few  steps  of  where  the  statue  where 
of   Benjamin    Franklin    is  in    Printing  Was§  Hanged 
House  Square,  Jacob  Leisler  was  hanged 

31 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

in  his  own  garden  in  1691,  the  city's 
first  martyr  to  constitutional  liberty. 
A  wealthy  merchant,  after  James  III 
fled  and  William  III  ascended  the 
throne,  Leisler  was  called  by  the  Com 
mittee  of  Safety  to  act  as  Governor. 
He  assembled  a  Continental  Congress, 
whose  deliberations  were  cut  short  by 
the  arrival  of  Col.  Henry  Sloughter  as 
Governor.  Enemies  of  Leisler  decided 
on  his  death.  The  new  Governor  re 
fused  to  sign  the  warrant,  but  being 
made  drunk  signed  it  unknowingly  and 
Leisler  was  hanged  and  his  body  buried 
at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold.  A  few  years 
later,  a  royal  proclamation  wiped  the 
taint  of  treason  from  Leisler's  memory 
and  his  body  was  removed  to  a  more 
honored  resting-place. 

Tammany  The  walls  of  the  Sun  building  at 
Park  Row  and  Frankfort  Street,  are 
those  of  the  first  permanent  home  of 
Tammany  Hall.  Besides  the  hall  it 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

contained  the  second  leading  hotel  in  the 
city,  where  board  was  $7  a  week.  Tam 
many  Hall,  organized  in  1789  by  Wil 
liam  Mooney,  an  upholsterer,  occupied 
quarters  in  Borden's  tavern  in  lower 
Broadway.  In  1798  it  removed  to 
Martling's  tavern,  at  the  southeast  cor 
ner  of  Nassau  and  Spruce,  until  its 
permanent  home  was  erected  in  1 8 1 1 . 

There  is  a  tablet  on  the  wall  of  the  A  Liberty 
south  corridor  of  the  post-office  build 
ing,  which  bears  the  inscription  : 


ON  THE  COMMON  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK, 
NEAR  WHERE  THIS  BUILDING  NOW  STANDS,  THERE 
STOOD  FROM  1766  TO  1776  A  LIBERTY  POLE 
ERECTED  TO  COMMEMORATE  THE  REPEAL  OF  THE 
STAMP  ACT.  IT  WAS  REPEATEDLY  DESTROYED  BY 
THE  VIOLENCE  OF  THE  TORIES  AND  AS  REPEATEDLY 
REPLACED  BY  THE  SONS  OF  LIBERTY,  WHO  ORGAN 
IZED  A  CONSTANT  WATCH  AND  GUARD.  IN  ITS 
DEFENCE  THE  FIRST  MARTYR  BLOOD  OF  THE  AMER 
ICAN  REVOLUTION  WAS  SHED  ON  JAN.  I  8,  1770. 


The  cutting  down  of  this  pole  led  to 
the  battle  of  Golden  Hill. 


33 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

City  Hall  The  post-office  building  was  erected 
on  a  portion  of  the  City  Hall  Park. 
This  park,  like  all  of  the  Island  of 
Manhattan,  was  a  wilderness  a  few  hun 
dred  years  ago.  By  1661,  where  the 
park  is  there  was  a  clearing  in  which 
cattle  were  herded.  In  time  the  clear 
ing  was  called  The  Fields  ;  later  The 
Commons.  On  The  Commons,  in 
Dutch  colonial  days,  criminals  were 
Ha1ld  executed.  Still  later  a  Potter's  Field 


Park  occupied  what  is  now  the  upper  end  of 

the  Park  ;  above  it,  and  extending  over 
the  present  Chambers  Street  was  a 
negro  burying-ground.  On  these  com 
mons,  in  1735,  a  poor-house  was  built, 
the  site  of  which  is  covered  by  the  pre 
sent  City  Hall.  From  time  to  time 
other  buildings  were  erected. 

The  new  Jail  was  finished  in  1763, 
and,  having  undergone  but  few  altera 
tions,  is  now  known  as  the  Hall  of  Re 
cords.  It  was  a  military  prison  during 
the  Revolution,  and  afterwards  a  Debt- 


34 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

ors'  Prison.  In  1830  it  became  the 
Register's  Office.  It  was  long  consid 
ered  the  most  beautiful  building  in  the 
city,  being  patterned  after  the  temple  of 
Diana  of  Ephesus. 

The  Bridewell,  or  City  Prison,  was 
built  on  The  Commons  in  1775,  cl°se 
by  Broadway,  on  a  line  with  the  Debt 
ors'  Prison.  It  was  torn  down  in  1838. 

The  present  City  Hall  was  finished  Thlrd 
in  1812.     About  that  time  The  Com-  city  Hall 
mons    were   fenced  in   and 
became  a  park,  taking  in  be-  "x 

sides  the  present  space,  that 
now  occupied  by  the  post- 
office  building.  The  con 
structors  of  the  City  Hall 
deemed  it  unnecessary  to  use 
marble  for  the  rear  wall  as 
they  had  for  the  sides  and 
front,  and  built  this  wall  of 
freestone,  it  being  then  al 
most  inconceivable  that  traf 
fic  could  ever  extend  so  far 

35 


> 

Cell  in  prison 
under  the  Hall  of  Records 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Governor's      up-town  as  to  permit  a  view  of  the  rear  of 

Room  x  A 

the  building.  1  he  most  noted  spot  in 
the  City  Hall  is  the  Governor's  Room, 
an  apartment  originally  intended  for  the 
use  of  the  Governor  when  in  the  city. 
In  time  it  became  the  municipal  portrait 
gallery,  and  a  reception  room  for  the 
distinguished  guests  of  the  city.  The 
bodies  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  of  John 
Howard  Payne  lay  in  state  in  this  room. 
With  it  is  also  associated  the  visit  of 
Lafayette  when  he  returned  to  this  coun 
try  in  1824  and  made  the  room  his  re 
ception  headquarters.  The  room  was 
also  the  scene  of  the  celebration  after 
the  capture  of  the  "  Guerriere  "  by  the 
"  Constitution"  ;  the  reception  to  Com 
modore  Perry  after  his  Lake  Erie  vic 
tory  ;  the  celebration  in  connection  with 
the  laying  of  the  Atlantic  cable ;  and  at 
the  completion  of  the  Erie  Canal.  It 
contains  a  large  gilt  punch-bowl,  show 
ing  scenes  in  New  York  a  hundred  years 
ago.  This  was  presented  to  the  city  by 
36 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

General  Jacob  Morton,  Secretary  of  the 
Committee  of  Defense,  at  the  opening 
of  the  City  Hall. 

At  the  western  end  of  the  front  wall 
of  City  Hall  is  a  tablet  reading : 


NEAR  THIS  SPOT  IN  THE  PRESENCE  OF 

GEN.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON 

THE  DECLARATION  OF 

INDEPENDENCE 
WAS  READ  AND  PUBLISHED 

TO  THE 

AMERICAN  ARMY 
JULY  QTH,    1776 


Other  buildings  erected  in  the  Park 
were  The  Rotunda,  1816,  on  the  site  of 
the  brown  stone  building  afterwards  oc 
cupied  by  the  Court  of  General  Sessions, 
where  works  of  art  were  exhibited  ;  and 
the  New  York  Institute  on  the  site  of 
the  Court  House,  occupied  in  1817  by 
the  American,  or  Scudder's  Museum, 
the  first  in  the  city.  The  Chambers 
Street  Bank,  the  first  bank  for  savings 

37 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

in  the  city,  opened  in  the  basement  of 
the  Institute  building  in  1818.  In  1841 
Philip  Hone  was  president  of  this  bank. 
It  afterwards  moved  to  the  north  side 
of  Bleecker  Street,  between  Broadway 
and  Crosby,  and  became  the  Bleecker 
Street  Bank.  Now  it  is  at  Twenty- 
second  Street  and  Fourth  Avenue,  and 
is  called  The  Bank  for  Savings. 

The  statue  of  Nathan  Hale  was 
erected  in  City  Hall  Park  by  the  Sons 
of  the  Revolution.  Some  authori 
ties  still  insist  that  the  Martyr  Spy 
was  hanged  in  this  park. 

Until    1821    there    were    fences  of 
wooden  pickets  about  the  park.     In 
that    year     iron     rail- 
.    ings,    which  had  been 
imported    from    Eng- 
;  land,    were     set     up, 
with  four  marble    pil 
lars    at    the    southern 
"*'  entrance.       The     next 
38 


StAtue  of 
NATHAN  HALE 

City  Hall  Park 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

year  trees  were  set  out  within  the  en-  Fences  °f 

...         ,  ...  City  Hall 

closure,  and  just  within  the  railing  were  park 
planted  a  number  of  rose-bushes  which 
had  been  supplied  by  two  ladies  who  had 
an  eye  to  landscape  gardening.  Frosts 
and  vandals  did  not  allow  the  bushes 
more  than  a  year  of  life.  Four  granite 
balls,  said  to  have  been  dug  from  the 
ruins  of  Troy,  were  placed  on  the  pillars 
at  the  southern  entrance,  May  8,  1827. 
They  were  given  to  the  city  by  Captain 
John  B.  Nicholson,  U.  S.  N. 

The  building  39  and  41  Chambers 
Street,  opposite  the  Court  House,  stands 
on  the  site  of  the  pretty  little  Palmo 
Opera  House,  built  in  1844  for  the 
production  of  Italian  opera,  by  F.  Palmo, 
the  wealthy  proprietor  of  the  Cafe  des 
Mille  Colonnes  on  Broadway  at  Duane 
Street.  He  lost  his  fortune  in  the 
operatic  venture  and  became  a  bartender. 
In  1848  the  house  became  Burton's 
Theatre.  About  1800,  this  site  was 

39 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 


Office  of 
Aaron  Burr 


occupied  by  the  First  Reformed  Presby 
terian  Church,  a  frame  building  which 
was  replaced  by  a  brick  structure  in 
1818.  The  church  was  moved  to 
Prince  and  Marion  Streets  in  1 834. 

At  No.  1 1  Reade  Street  is  a  dingy 
little  house,  now  covered  with  signs  and 
given  over  to  half  a  dozen  small  busi 
ness  concerns,  about  which  hover  memo 
ries  of  Aaron  Burr.  It  was  here  he  had 
a  law  office  in  1832,  and  here  when  he 
was  seventy-eight  years  old  he  first  met 
Mme.  Jumel  whom  he  afterwards 
married.  The  house  is  to  be 
torn  down  to  make  way  for  new 
municipal  buildings. 


At  Rose  and  Duane  Streets 
stands  the  Rhinelander  build 
ing,  and  on  the  Rose  Street 
side  close  by  the  main  en 
trance  is  a  small  grated  window. 
This  is  the  last  trace  of  a  sugar- 


*de   St 


ubert  AAJMN&I 

hxtanoffu.  .. 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

house,  which,  during  the  Revolutionary  An  Historic 

j  r>    •   •    i  •!•  Window 

War,  was  used  as  a  British  military 
prison.  The  building  was  not  demol 
ished  until  1892,  and  the  window,  re 
taining  its  original  position  in  the  old 
house,  was  built  into  the  new. 

Where  the  Tombs  prison  stands  was  The 
once  the  Collect,  or  Fresh  Water  Pond.  priSOn 
This  deep  body  of  water  took  up,  ap 
proximately,  the  space  between  the 
present  Baxter,  Elm,  Canal  and  Pearl 
Streets.  When  the  Island  of  Manhat 
tan  was  first  inhabited,  a  swamp  stretched 
in  a  wide  belt  across  it  from  where 
Roosevelt  Slip  is  now  to  the  end  of 
Canal  Street  on  the  west  side.  The 
Collect  was  the  centre  of  this  stretch, 
with  a  stream  called  the  Wreck  Brook 
flowing  from  it  across  a  marsh  to  the  East 
River.  At  a  time 
near  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century 
a  drain  was  cut  from 


"The  Tombi" 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

the  Collect  to  the  North  River,  on  a  line 
with  the  present  Canal  Street.  With 
the  progress  of  the  city  to  the  north, 
the  pond  was  drained,  and  the  swamp 
made  into  firm  ground.  In  1816,  the 
Corporation  Yards  occupied  the  block 
of  Elm,  Centre,  Leonard  and  Franklin 
Streets,  on  the  ground  which  had  filled 
in  the  pond.  The  Tombs,  or  City 
Prison,  was  built  on  this  block  in  1838. 


The  The  ]7|ve    Points   still   exists    where 

Five  Points 

Worth,  Baxter  and  Park  Streets  inter 
sect,  but  it  is  no  longer  the  centre  of  a 
community  of  crime  that  gained  inter 
national  notoriety.  It  was  once  the 
gathering-point  for  criminals  and  de 
graded  persons  of  both  sexes  and  of  all 
nationalities,  a  rookery  for  thieves  and 
murderers.  Its  history  began  more 
than  a  century  and  a  half  ago.  During 
the  so-called  Negro  Insurrection  of  1741, 
when  many  negroes  were  hanged,  the 
severest  punishment  was  the  burning  at 
42 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

the   stake  of  fourteen    negroes   in   this 
locality. 

One  of  the  five  "  Points "  is  now 
formed  by  a  pleasant  park  which  a  few 
years  ago  took  the  place  of  the  last 
remnant  of  the  old-time  locality.  In 
no  single  block  of  the  city  was  there 
ever  such  a  record  for  crime  as  in  this 
old  "Mulberry  Bend"  block.  Set  low 
in  a  hollow,  it  was  a  refuge  for  the  out 
casts  of  the  city  and  of  half  a  dozen 
countries.  The  slum  took  its  name,  as 
the  park  does  now,  from  Mulberry 
Street,  which  on  one  side  of  it  makes  a  slum 
deep  and  sudden  bend.  In  this  slum 
block  the  houses  were  three  deep  in 
places,  with  scarcely  the  suggestion  of 
a  courtyard  between  them.  Narrow 
alleys,  hardly  wide  enough  to  permit 
the  passage  of  a  man,  led  between 
houses  to  beer  cellars,  stables  and  time- 
blackened,  tumbledown  tenements. 
Obscure  ways  honeycombed  the  entire 
block — ways  that  led  beneath  houses, 

43 


An  Ancient 
Church 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

over  low  sheds,  through  fragments  of 
wall — ways  that  were  known  only  to  the 
thief  and  the  tramp.  There  "  Bottle 
Alley,"  "Bandit's  Roost"  and  "Rag 
picker's  Row "  were  the  scenes  of 
many  wild  fights,  and  many  a  time  the 
ready  stiletto  ended  the  lives  of  men, 
or  the  heavy  club  dashed  out  brains. 

The  Five  Points  House  of  Industry's 
work  was  begun  in  1850,  and  has  been 
successful  in  ameliorating  the  moral  and 
physical  condition  of  the  people  of  the 
vicinity.  The  institution  devoted  to 
this  work  stands  on  the  site  of  the  "Old 
Brewery,"  the  most  notorious  criminal 
resort  of  the  locality. 

At  Mott  and  Park  Streets  is  now  the 
Church  of  the  Transfiguration 
J      (Catholic).       On    a   hill,    the 
suggestion  of   which    is    still 
to  be  seen  in  steep  Park 
Street,  the  Zion  Lutheran 
Church  was  erected 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

in  1797.  In  1810  it  was  changed  to 
Zion  Episcopal  Church.  It  was  burned 
in  1815  ;  rebuilt  1819,  and  sold  in  1853 
to  the  Church  of  the  Transfiguration, 
which  has  occupied  it  since.  This  last 
church  had  previously  been  in  Cham 
bers  Street,  and  before  that  it  had  occu 
pied  several  quarters.  It  was  founded 
in  1827,  and  is  the  fourth  oldest  church 
in  the  diocese.  Zion  Episcopal  Church 
moved  in  1853  to  Thirty-eighth  Street 
and  Madison  Avenue,  and  in  1891 
consolidated  with  St.  Timothy's  Church 
at  No.  332  West  Fifty-seventh  Street. 
The  Madison  Avenue  building  was  sold 
to  the  South  (Reformed)  Dutch  Church. 

Chatham  Square  has   been  the  open  Chatham 

,  ,  Square 

space  it  is  now  ever  since  the  time  when  a 
few  houses  clustered  about  Fort  Amster 
dam.  The  road  that  stretched  the  length 
of  the  island  in  1647  formed  the  only 
connecting  link  between  the  fort  and  six 
large  bouweries  or  farms  on  the  east  side. 

45 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  bouwerie  settlers  in  the  early 
days  were  harassed  by  Indians,  and 
spent  as  much  time  defending  them 
selves  and  skurrying  off  to  the  protec 
tion  of  the  Fort  as  they  did  in  improv 
ing  the  land.  The  earliest  settlement 
in  the  direction  of  these  bouweries, 
which  had  even  a  suggestion  of  perma 
nency,  was  on  a  hill  which  had  once 
been  an  Indian  outlook,  close  by  the 
present  Chatham  Square.  Emanuel  de 
Groot,a  giant  negro,  with  ten  superannu 
ated  slaves,  were  permitted  to  settle  here 
upon  agreeing  to  pay  each  a  fat  hog  and 
22  j£  bushels  of  grain  a  year,  their  chil 
dren  to  remain  slaves. 

North  of  this  settlement  stretched  a 
primeval    forest    through    which    cattle 
wandered  and    were    lost.       Then    the 
future   Chatham   Square  was  fenced   in 
as  a  place  of  protection  for  the  cattle. 
Bouwerie         The  lane  leading  from  this  enclosure 
to  the   outlying  bouweries,  during  the 
Revolution  was  used  for  the  passage  of 
46 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

both  armies.  At  that  period  the  high 
way  changed  from  the  Bouwerie  Lane 
of  the  Dutch  to  the  English  Bowery 
Road.  In  1807  it  became  "The 
Bowery/' 

The  earliest  "  Kissing  Bridge "  was 
over  a  small  creek,  on  the  Post  Road, 
close  by  the  present  Chatham  Square. 
Travelers  who  left  the  city  by  this  road 
parted  with  their  friends  on  this  bridge, 
it  being  the  custom  to  accompany  the 
traveler  thus  far  from  the  city  on  his 
way. 

What  is  now  Park  Row,  from  City 
Hall  Park  to  Chatham  Square,  was  for 
many  years  called  Chatham  Street,  in 
honor  of  William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham. 
In  1886  the  aldermen  of  the  city  changed 
the  name  to  Park  Row,  and  in  so  doing 
seemed  to  stamp  approval  of  an  event 
just  one  hundred  years  before  which  had 
stirred  American  manhood  to  acts  of 

47 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

valor.  This  was  the  dragging  down  by 
British  soldiers  in  1776  of  a  statue  of 
the  Earl  of  Chatham  which  had  stood 
in  Wall  Street. 

Tea  Water  The  most  celebrated  pump  in  the  city 
was  the  Tea  Water  Pump,  on  Chatham 
Street  (now  Park  Row)  near  Queen 
(now  Pearl)  Street.  The  water  was 
supplied  from  the  Collect  and  was  con 
sidered  of  the  rarest  quality  for  the 
making  of  tea.  Up  to  1789  it  was 
the  chief  water-works  of  the  city,  and  the 
water  was  carted  about  the  city  in  casks 
and  sold  from  carts. 

Home  of         Within  a  few  steps  of  the  Bowery,  on 

Temple       tne  nortri  side  of  Pell  Street,  in  a  frame 

house,   Charlotte    Temple    died.     The 

heroine    of   Mrs.    Rowson's    "Tale  of 

Truth,"  whose  sorrowful   life  was  held 

up  as  a  moral   lesson  a  generation  ago, 

had  lived  first  in  a  house  on  what  is  now 

the  south  side  of  Astor  Place  close  to 

48 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Fourth    Avenue.       Her    tomb    is    in 
Trinity  churchyard. 

The  Bull's  Head  Tavern  was  built  Bull's  Head 
on  the  site  of  the  present  Thalia  Theatre,  ' 
formerly  the  Bowery  Theatre,  just  above 
Chatham  Square,  some  years  before 
1763.  It  was  frequented  by  drovers 
and  butchers,  and  was  the  most  popular 
tavern  of  its  kind  in  the  city  for  many 
years.  Washington  and  his  staff  occu 
pied  it  on  the  day  the  British  evacuated 
the  city  in  1783.  It  was  pulled  down 
in  1826,  making  way  for  the  Bowery 
Theatreo 

The    Bowery    Theatre    was    opened  First 

.      ,  ,  r   •        Bowery 

in  1826,  and  during  the  course  or  its  Theatre 
existence  was  the  home  of  broad  melo 
drama,  that  had  such  a  large  following 
that  the  theatre  obtained  a  national  rep 
utation.  Many  celebrated  actors  ap 
peared  in  the  house.  It  was  burned 
in  1828,  rebuilt  and  burned  again  in 

49 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

1836,    again    in     1838,    in     1845 
in  1848. 

New  Bowery  Street  was  opened  from 
the  south  side  of  Chatham  Square  in 
1856.  The  street  carried  away  a  part 
of  a  Jewish  burying-ground,  a  portion 
of  which,  crowded  between  tenement- 
houses  and  shut  off  from  the  street  by 
a  wall  and  iron  fence,  is  still  to  be  seen 
a  few  steps  from  Chatham  Square. 
The  first  synagogue  of  the  Jews  was 
in  Mill  Street  (now  South  William). 
The  graveyard  mentioned  was  the  first 
one  used  by  this  congregation,  and  was 
opened  in  1681,  so  far  from  the  city 
that  it  did  not  seem  probable  that  the 
latter  could  ever  reach  it.  Early  in 
the  nineteenth  century  the  graveyard 
was  moved  to  a  site  which  is  now  Sixth 
Avenue  and  Eleventh  Street. 


Washington's       The    Franklin    House   was   the   first 
Cherry  °Hill     place  of  residence  of  George  Washing 
ton  in  the  city,  when  he  became  Presi- 

5° 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

dent  in  1789.  It  stood  at  the  corner  of 
Franklin  Square  (then  St.  George  Square) 
and  Cherry  Street.  A  portion  of  the 
East  River  Bridge  structure  rests  on 
the  site.  Pearl  Street,  passing  the 
house,  was  a  main  thoroughfare  in  those 
days.  The  house  was  built  in  1770  by 
Walter  Franklin,  an  importing  mer 
chant.  It  was  torn  down  in  1856. 
The  site  is  marked  by  a  tablet  on  the 
Bridge  abutment,  which  reads  : 


THE    FIRST 

PRESIDENTIAL    MANSION 
NO.    I    CHERRY    STREET 

OCCUPIED    BY 

GEORGE   WASHINGTON 

FROM    APRIL    23,     1789 

TO    FEBRUARY    23,    1790 

ERECTED     BY    THE 

MARY  WASHINGTON  COLONIAL  CHAPTER,  D.A.  R. 
APRIL    30,    1899 


At  No.  7  Cherry  Street  gas  was  first 
introduced  into  the  city  in  1825.  This 
is  the  Cherry  Hill  district,  sadly  deteri- 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

orated  from  the  merry  days  of  its  in 
fancy.  Its  name  is  still  preserved 
in  Cherry  Street,  which  is  hemmed  in 
by  tenement-houses  which  the  Italian 
population  crowd  in  almost  inconceiv 
able  numbers.  At  the  top  of  the  hill, 
where  these  Italians  drag  out  a  crowded 
existence,  Richard  Sackett,  an  English 
man,  established  a  pleasure  garden  be 
yond  the  city  in  1670,  and  because  its 
chief  attraction  was  an  orchard  of  cherry 
trees,  called  it  the  Cherry  Garden — a 
name  that  has  since  clung  to  the  locality. 


II 


-Hu<boft  I,  Witt)  5t» 


II 


New  Amsterdam,  which  cen-  The 
tered  about  the  Fort,  the  only  road  Bro?dw°ay 
which  led  through  the  island  branched 
out  from  Bowling  Green.     It  took  the 
line  of  what  is  now  Broadway,  and  dur 
ing  a  period  of  one  hundred  years  was 
the  only  road  which  extended  the  length 
of  the  island. 

That  Broadway,  beyond  St.  Paul's 
Chapel,  ever  became  a  greatly  traveled 
thoroughfare,  was  due  more  to  accident 
than  design,  for  to  all  appearances  the 
road  which  turned  to  the  east  was  to  be 
the  main  artery  for  the  city's  travel,  and 
all  calculations  were  made  to  that  end. 
Broadway  really  ended  at  St.  Paul's. 

55 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  First  Morris  Street  was  called  Beaver  Lane 
before  the  name  was  changed  in  1829. 
On  this  street,  near  Broadway,  the  first 
graveyard  of  the  city  was  situated.  It 
was  removed  and  the  ground  sold  at 
auction  in  1676,  when  a  plot  was  ac 
quired  opposite  Wall  Street.  This  last 
was  used  in  conjunction  with  Trinity 
Church  until  city  interment  was  pro 
hibited. 


The  First         Qn  the  office   building  at  41  Broad- 
Built          way  there   is  fixed  a  tablet  which  bears 
the  inscription  : 


THIS  TABLET    MARKS  THE    SITE  OF  THE 

FIRST  HABITATIONS  OF  WHITE  MEN 

ON  THE  ISLAND  OF  MANHATTAN 

ADRIAN  BLOCK 

COMMANDER  OF  THE   "TIGER" 

ERECTED  HERE  FOUR  HOUSES  OR  HUTS 

AFTER  HIS  VESSEL  WAS  BURNED 

NOVEMBER,    1613 

HE  BUILT  THE    RESTLESS,  THE  FIRST  VESSEL 

MADE  BY  EUROPEANS    IN   THIS  COUNTRY 

THE  RESTLESS  WAS  LAUNCHED 

IN  THE  SPRING  OF  1614 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Adrian  Block  was  one  of  the  earliest 
fur  traders  to  visit  the  island  after 
Henry  Hudson  returned  to  Hol 
land  with  the  news  of  his  discovery. 
The  "  Tiger "  took  fire  in  the  night 
while  anchored  in  the  bay,  and  Block 
and  his  crew  reached  the  shore  with 
difficulty.  They  were  the  only  white 
men  on  the  island.  Immediately  they 
set  about  building  a  new  vessel,  which 
was  named  the  "  Restless." 

Next  door,  at  No.  39,  President 
Washington  lived  in  the  Macomb's 
Mansion,  moving  there  from  the  Frank 
lin  House  in  1790.  Subsequently  the 
house  became  a  hotel. 

There  is  a  rift  in  the  walls  between  Tin  Pot 
the  tall  buildings  at  No.  55  Broadway, 
near  Rector  Street,  a  cemented  way  that 
is  neither  alley  nor  street.  It  was  a  green 
lane  before  New  Amsterdam  became 
New  York,  and  for  a  hundred  years  has 

57 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

been  called  Tin  Pot  Alley.  With  the 
growth  of  the  city  the  little  lane  came 
near  being  crowded  out,  and  the  name, 
not  being  of  proper  dignity,  would  be 
forgotten  but  for  a  terra  cotta  tablet 
fixed  in  a  building  at  its  entrance.  This 
was  placed  there  by  Rev.  Morgan  Dix, 
the  pastor  of  Trinity  Church. 

At  trie  southwest  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Rector  Street,  where  a  sky-scraper 
is  now,  Grace  Church  once  stood  with  a 
graveyard  about  it.  The  church  was 
completed  in  1808,  and  was  there  until 
1846,  when  the  present  structure  was 
erected  at  Broadway  and  Tenth  Street. 
Upon  the  Rector  Street  site,  the  Trin 
ity  Lutheran  Church,  a  log  structure, 
was  built  in  1671.  It  was  rebuilt  in 
1741,  and  was  burned  in  the  great  fire 
of  1776. 

Trinity  Trinity  churchyard  is  part  of  a  large 

Churchyard  \  ° 

tract  or   land,   granted    to  the    1  rmity 

c8 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Corporation  in  1705,  that  was  once  the 
Queen's  Farm. 

In  1635  tnere  were  a  number  of 
bouweries  or  farms  above  the  Fort. 
The  nearest — one  extending  about  to 
where  Warren  Street  is — was  set  apart 
for  the  Dutch  West  India  Company, 
and  called  the  Company's  Farm.  Above 
this  was  another,  bounded  approxi 
mately  by  what  are  now  Warren  and 
Charlton  Streets,  west  of  Broadway. 
This  last  was  given  by  the  company,  in 
1635,  to  R°el°f  Jansz  (contraction  of 
Jannsen),  a  Dutch  colonist.  He  died 
the  following  year,  and  the  farm  became 
the  property  of  his  wife,  Annetje  Jans. 
(In  the  feminine,  the  z  being  omitted, 
the  form  became  Jans.)  The  farm  was 
sold  to  Francis  Lovelace,  the  English 
Governor,  in  1 670,  and  he  added  it  to  the 
company's  farm,  and  it  became  thereafter 
the  Duke's  Farm.  In  1674  it  became 
the  King's  Farm.  When  Queen  Anne 
began  her  reign  it  became  the  Queen's 

59 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Annetje  Farm,  and  it  was  she  who  granted  it  to 
Trinity,  making  it  the  Church  Farm. 

In  1731,  which  was  sixty-one  years 
after  the  Annetje  Jans's  farm  was  sold 
to  Governor  Lovelace,  the  descendants 
of  Annetje  Jans  for  the  first  time  de 
cided  that  they  had  yet  some  interest  in 
the  farm,  and  made  an  unsuccessful  pro 
test.  From  time  to  time  since  protests 
in  the  form  of  lawsuits  have  been  made, 
but  no  court  has  sustained  the  claims. 

The  city's  growth  was  retarded  by 
church  ownership  of  land,  as  no  one 
wanted  to  build  on  leasehold  property. 
It  was  not  until  the  greater  part  of  avail 
able  land  on  the  east  side  of  the  island 
was  built  upon  that  the  church  property 
was  made  use  of  on  the  only  terms  it 
could  be  had.  Not  until  1 803  were  the 
streets  from  Warren  to  Canal  laid  out. 

Trinity   Church   was  built  in    1697. 
For  years   before,  however,   there  had 
been  a  burying-ground  beyond  the  city 
60 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

and  the  city's  wall  that  became  the 
Trinity  graveyard  of  to-day.  The  wav 
ing  grass  extended  to  a  bold  bluff  over 
looking  Hudson  River,  which  was  about 
where  Greenwich  Street  now  is.  Through 
the  bluff  a  street  was  cut,  its  passage 
being  still  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the  high 
wall  on  the  Trinity  Place  side  of  the 
graveyard. 

The  oldest  grave  of  which  there  is  a  oldest  Grave 

....  ,  .  c     ,        In  Trinity 

record  is  in  the  northern  section  or  the  churchyard 
churchyard,  on  the  left  of  the  first  path. 
It  is  that  of  a  child,  and  is  marked  with 
a  sandstone  slab,  with  a  skull,  cross- 
bones  and  winged  hour-glass  cut  in  re 
lief  on  the  back,  the  inscription  on  the 
front  reading : 

w.  c. 

HEAR  .  LYES  .  THE  .  BODY 

OF  .  RICHARD  .  CHVRCH 

ER  .  SON  .  OF  .  WILLIA 

M.  CHVRCHER  .  WHO  . 

DIED  .  THE   .   5  OF   .  APRIL 

1 68 1    .   OF   .   AGE    5   YEARS 

AND   .   5   .  MONTHS 

61 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  records  tell  nothing  of  the  Churcher 
family. 

Within  a  few  feet  of  this  stone  is  an 
other  that  countless  eyes  have  looked 
at  through  the  iron  fence  from  Broad 
way,  which  says  : 

HA,  SYDNEY,  SYDNEY  / 

LYEST    THOU    HERE  ? 

I    HERE    LYE, 

'TIL    TIME    IS    FLOWN 

TO    ITS    EXTREMITY. 

It  is  the  grave  of  a  merchant — once  an 
officer  of  the  British  army — Sydney 
Breese,  who  wrote  his  epitaph  and  di 
rected  that  it  be  placed  on 
his  tombstone.  He  died 
in  1767. 

On  the  opposite  side  of 
the  path,  nearer  to  Broad 
way,  is  a  marble  slab  lying 
flat  on  the  ground  and 

6a 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

each  year  sinking  deeper  into  the  earth. 

It  was  placed  there  by  one  of  the  sex-  Temple 

tons  of  Trinity  more  than  a  century  ago, 

in  memory  of  Charlotte  Temple. 

Close  by  the  porch  of  the  north  en 
trance  to  the  church  is  the  stone  that 
marks  the  grave  of  William  Bradford, 
who  set  up  the  first  printing-press  in 
the  colony  and  was  printer  to  the  Col 
onial  Government  for  fifty  years.  He 
was  ninety-two  years  old  when  he  died 
in  1752.  The  original  stone  was  crum 
bling  to  decay  when,  in  1863,  the  Vestry 
of  Trinity  Church  replaced  it  by  the 
present  stone,  renewing  the  original 
inscription  (see  page  14). 

The  tall  freestone  Gothic  shaft,  the  Martyrs' 

Monument 

only  monumental  pile  in  the  northern 
section  of  the  churchyard,  serves  to 
commemorate  the  unknown  dead  of  the 
Revolution.  Trinity  Church  with  all 
its  records,  together  with  a  large  section 
63 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

of  the  western  part  of  the  city,  was 
burned  in  1776  when  the  British  army 
occupied  the  city.  During  the  next 
seven  years  the  only  burials  in  the  grave 
yard  were  the  American  prisoners  from 
the  Provost  Jail  in  The  Commons  and 
the  other  crowded  prisons  of  the  city, 
who  were  interred  at  night  and  without 
ceremony.  No  record  was  kept  of  who 
the  dead  were. 


A  Close  to  the  Martyrs'  Monument  is  a 

Churchyard  ... 

Cryptograph  stone  so  near  the  fence  that  its  inscrip 
tion  can  be  read  from  Broadway  : 

HERE    LIES 
DEPOSITED    THE    BODY    OF 

JAMES  LEESON, 

WHO    DEPARTED    THIS    LIFE    ON 

THE     28TH    DAY    OF    SEPTEMBER,    1794, 

AGED    38    YEARS. 

And  above  the  inscription  are  cut  these 
curious  characters  : 

FlBLLBLLLJEimiDQJJFl 

64 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

It  is  a  cryptograph,  but  a  simple  one, 
familiar  to  school  children.  In  its  solu 
tion  three  diagrams  are  drawn  and  let 
tered  thus  : 


N          O 


The  lines  which  enclose  the  letters  are 
separated  from  the  design,  and  each 
section  used  instead  of  the  letters.  For 
example,  the  letters  A,  B,  C,  become  : 

J    U    L 

The  second  series  begins  with  K,  be 
cause  the  I  sign  is  also  used  for  J. 
The  letters  of  the  three  series  are  distin 
guished  by  dots  ;  one  dot  being  placed 
with  the  lines  of  the  first  series ;  two 
dots  with  the  second,  but  none  with  the 
third.  If  this  be  tried,  any  one  can 
readily  decipher  the  meaning  of  the 

65 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

cryptograph,  and  read  "  REMEMBER 
DEATH." 


Close  to  the  north  door  of  the  church 
are  interred  the  remains  of  Lady  Corn- 
bury,  who  could  call  England's  Queen 
Anne  cousin.  She  was  the  wife  of 
Edward  Hyde,  Lord  Cornbury,  who 
was  Governor  of  New  York  in  1702. 
He  was  a  grandson  of  the  Earl  of  Clar 
endon,  Prime  Minister  of  Charles  II  ; 
and  son  of  that  Earl  of  Clarendon  who 
was  brother-in-law  of  James  II.  So 
Lady  Cornbury  was  first  cousin  of 
Queen  Anne.  She  was  Baroness  of 
Clifton  in  her  own  right,  and  a  gracious 
lady.  She  died  in  1706. 

The  tomb  of  Alexan 
der  Hamilton,  patriot, 
soldier  and  statesman, 
stands  conspic 
uously    in    the 
southern     half 


Tomb   of 
ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

of  the  churchyard,  about  forty  feet  from  Alexander 

'  r          r  ,  Hamilton's 

Broadway  and  ten    feet  from  the  iron  Tomb 
railing  on  Rector  Street. 

In  the  same  part  of  the  churchyard 
are  interred  the  remains  of  Philip,  eldest 
son  of  Alexander  Hamilton.  The  son 
in  1801  fell  in  a  duel  with  George  L. 
Eacker,  a  young  lawyer,  when  the  two 
disagreed  over  a  political  matter.  Three 
years  later  Eacker  died  and  was  buried 
in  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  and  the  same 
year  Alexander  Hamilton  fell  before  the 
duelling  pistol  of  Aaron  Burr. 

Close  by    Hamilton's    tomb,  a   slab  Last  Friend 

of 
almost  buried  in  the  earth  bears  the  in-  Aaron  Burr 

scription  "  Matthew  L.  Davis'  Sepul 
chre."  Strange  that  this  "  last  friend 
that  Aaron  Burr  possessed  on  earth  " 
should  rest  in  death  so  close  to  his 
friend's  great  enemy.  He  went  to  the 
Jersey  shore  in  a  row-boat  with  Burr  on 
the  day  the  duel  was  fought  with  Ham 
ilton,  and  stood  not  far  away  with  Dr 
67 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Hosack  to  await  the  outcome.  He  was 
imprisoned  for  refusing  to  testify  before 
the  Coroner.  Afterwards  he  wrote  a 
life  of  Burr.  He  was  a  merchant,  with 
a  store  at  49  Stone  Street,  and  was 
highly  respected. 

Ca°PTbjames  Within  a  few  steps  of  Broadway,  at 
Lawrence  the  southern  entrance  to  the  church, 
is  the  tomb  of  Captain  James  Lawrence, 
U.  S.  N.,  who  was  killed  on  board  the 
frigate  Chesapeake  during  the  engage 
ment  with  H.  B.  M.  frigate  "  Shannon." 
His  dying  words,  "  Don't  give  up  the 
ship  !  "  are  now  known  to  every  school 
boy.  The  handsome  mausoleum  close 
by  the  church  door,  and  the  surrounding 
eight  cannon,  first  attract  the  eye.  These 
cannon,  selected  from  arms  captured 
from  the  English  in  the  War  of  1 8 1 2, 
are  buried  deep,  according  to  the  di 
rections  of  the  Vestry  of  Trinity,  in  or 
der  that  the  national  insignia,  and  the 
inscription  telling  of  the  place  and  time 

68 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

of  capture,  might  be  hidden  and  no 
evidence  of  triumph  paraded  in  that 
place — where  all  are  equal,  where  peace 
reigns  and  enmity  is  unknown.  The 
monument  was  erected  August  22,  i 844. 
Before  that  the  remains  of  Captain 
Lawrence  had  been  interred  in  the  south 
west  corner  of  the  churchyard,  beneath 
a  shaft  of  white  marble.  This  first  rest 
ing-place  was  selected  in  September, 
1813,  when  the  body  was  brought  to  the 
city  and  interred,  after  being  carried  in 
funeral  procession  from  the  Battery. 

"  D.  Contant "  is  the  inscription  on 
the  first  vault  at  the  south  entrance,  one 
of  the  first  victims  of  the  revocation  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes  to  be  buried  in  the 
city.  There  are  many  Huguenot  me 
morials  in  the  churchyard,  the  oddest 
being  a  tombstone  with  a  Latin  inscrip 
tion  telling  that  Withamus  de  Marisco, 
who  died  in  1765,  was  "  most  noble  on 
the  side  of  his  father's  mother." 
69 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

CresaP,the       At    the    rear   of  the   church,    to   the 

Indian  . 

Fighter        north,  is  a  small  headstone : 


IN  MEMORY  OF 

MICHAEL  CRESAP 

FIRST  CAPTAIN  OF  THE 

RIFLE  BATTALIONS 

AND  SON  OF  COLONEL  THOMAS  CRESAP 

WHO    DEPARTED  THIS    LIFE 

OCT.    l8,  A.  D.    1775. 

His  father  had  been  a  friend  and  neigh 
bor  of  Washington  in  Virginia,  and  he 
himself  was  a  brilliant  Indian  fighter  on 
the  frontier  of  his  native  State.  It  was 
the  men  under  his  command  who,  un 
ordered,  exterminated  the  family  of 
Logan,  the  Indian  chief,  "  the  friend 
of  the  white  man."  Many  a  boy,  who 
in  school  declaimed,  unthinkingly, 
"  Who  is  there  to  mourn  for  Logan  ? 
Not  one  !  "  grown  to  manhood,  cannot 
but  look  with  interest  on  the  grave  of 
Logan's  foe.  Tradition  has  been  kind 
to  Cresap's  memory,  insisting  that  his 
70 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

heart  broke  over  the  accusation  of  re 
sponsibility  for  the  death  of  Logan's 
family. 

There  is  another  slab,  close  by  the 
grave  of  Captain  Cresap,  which  tells  : 

"  HERE  LIETH  YE  BODY  OF  SUSAN 
NAH  NEAN,  WIFE  OF  ELIAS  NEAN,  BORN 
IN  YE  CITY  OF  ROCHELLE,  IN  FRANCE, 
IN  YE  YEAR  l66o,  WHO  DEPARTED 
THIS  LIFE  25  DAY  OF  DECEMBER, 
1720,  AGE  60  YEARS."  "HERE  LIETH 
ENTERRED  YE  BODY  OF  ELIAS  NEAN, 
CATECHIST  IN  NEW  YORK,  BORN  IN 
SOUBISE,  IN  YE  PROVINCE  OF  CAEN- 
TONGE  IN  FRANCE  IN  YE  YEAR  1 662, 
WHO  DEPARTED  THIS  LIFE  8  DAY  OF 
SEPTEMBER  1 7 22  AGED  60  YEARS." 
"THIS  INSCRIPTION  WAS  RESTORED  BY 
ORDER  OF  THEIR  DESCENDANT  OF  THE 
6TH  GENERATION,  ELIZABETH  CHAMP- 
LIN  PERRY,  WIDOW  OF  THE  LATE 
COM'R  O.  H.  PERRY,  OF  THE  U.  S. 
NAVY,  MAY,  ANNO  DOMINI,  1846." 

But  the  stone  does  not  tell    that  the 
Huguenot  refugee  was  for  many  years 

71 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

a  vestryman  of  Trinity  Church,  and  that 
among  his  descendants  are  the  Belmonts 
and  a  dozen  distinguished  families. 
Before  coming  to  America,  Elias  Nean 
was  condemned  to  the  galleys  in  France 
because  he  refused  to  renounce  the  re 
formed  religion. 

Where  Beneath  the  middle  aisle  in  the  church 

De  Lancey  He  the  bones  of  the  eldest  son  of  Stephen 
was  buried  (Etienne)  De  Lancey— James  De  Lan 
cey.  He  was  Chief  Justice  of  the  Colony 
of  New  York  in  1733,  and  Lieutenant- 
Governor  in  1753.  He  died  suddenly 
in  1 760  at  his  country  house  which  was 
at  the  present  northwest  corner  of  De- 
lancey  and  Chrystie  Streets.  A  lane  led 
from  the  house  to  the  Bowery. 

Home  of          Thames  Street  is  as  narrow  now  as  it 

DeLanceys  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  years   ago, 

when  it  was  a  carriageway  that   led  to 

the  stables  of  Etienne  De  Lancey.     The 

Huguenot    nobleman    left    his     Broad 

72 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Street  house  for  the  new  home  he  had 
built  at  Broadway  and  Cedar  Street  in 
1730.  In  1741,  at  his  death,  it  became 
the  property  of  his  son,  James,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor.  It  was  the  most  im 
posing  house  in  the  town,  elegantly 
decorated,  encircled  by  broad  balconies, 
with  an  uninterrupted  garden  extending 
to  the  river  at  the  back. 

After  the  death  of  Lieu  tenant- Gover 
nor  De  Lancey  in  1760,  the  house  be 
came  a  hotel,  and  was  known  under 
many  names.  It  was  a  favorite  place  for 
British  officers  during  the  Revolution, 
and  in  1789  was  the  scene  of  the  first 
"  inauguration  ball  "  in  honor  of  Presi 
dent  Washington. 

The  house  was  torn  down  in  1793. 
In  1806  the  City  Hotel  was  erected  on 
its  site  and  became  the  most  fashionable 
in  town.  It  was  removed  in  1850  and 
a  line  of  shops  set  up.  In  1889  the 
present  buildings  were  erected. 

A  tablet  on  the  building  at  1 13  Broad- 

73 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

way,  corner  of  Cedar  Street,  marks  the 
site,  reading  : 


THE  SITE  OF 
LIEUT.  GOVE.    DE  LANCEY's  HOUSE, 

LATER  THE  CITY  HOTEL. 

IT  WAS  HERE  THAT  THE  NON-IMPORTATION 

AGREEMENT,   IN   OPPOSITION  TO  THE  STAMP 

ACT,   WAS  SIGNED,  OCT.    I  5TH,   1766.        THE 

TAVERN    HAD  MANY  PROPRIETORS  BY  WHOSE 

NAMES  IT  WAS  SUCCESSIVELY  CALLED.        IT 
WAS  ALSO    KNOWN  AS  THE    PROVINCE  ARMS,   THE 
CITY  ARMS  AND  BURNS  COFFEE  HOUSE  OR  TAVERN. 


Opposite  Liberty  (then  Crown)  Street, 
in  the  centre  of  Broadway,  there  stood 
in  1789  a  detached  building  42x25 
feet.  It  was  the  c  (  up-town  market, " 
patronized  by  the  wealthy,  who  did  their 
own  marketing  in  those  days,  their  black 
slaves  carrying  the  purchases  home. 

Washington  Washington  Market,  at  the  foot  of 
Fulton  Street,  was  built  in  1833.  The 
water  washed  the  western  side  of  it  then, 
and  ships  sailed  to  it  to  deliver  their 

74 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

freight.  Since  then  the  water  has  been 
crowded  back  year  by  year  with  the 
growing  demand  for  land.  In  its  early 
days  it  was  variously  called  Country 
Market,  Fish  Market  and  Exterior 
Market. 

At  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  in  a  field  St.  Paul': 

J  Chapel 

that  the  same  year  had  been  sown  with 
wheat,  the  cornerstone  of  St.  Paul's 
Chapel  was  laid  on  May  14,  1764.  The 
church  was  opened  two  years  later,  and 
the  steeple  added  in  1794.  It  fronted 
the  river  which  came  up  then  as  far  as 
to  where  Greenwich  Street  is  now,  and 
a  grassy  lawn  sloped  down  to  a  beach 
of  pebbles.  During  the  days  of  Eng 
lish  occupancy,  Major  Andre,  Lord 
Howe  and  Sir  Guy  Carleton  worshipped 
there.  Another  who  attended  services 
there  was  the  English  midshipman  who 
afterwards  became  William  IV. 

President  Washington,  on  the  day  of 
his  inauguration,  marched  at  the  head  of 

75 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 


St.  Paul's 


The  the  representative  men  of  the  new  nation 

Washington  •       •      o      r»      i»  11 

Pew  in  to  attend  service  in  St.  raul  s,  and  there 
after  attended  regularly.  The  pew  he 
occupied  has  been  preserved  and  is  still 
to  be  seen  next  the  north  wall,  midway 
between  the  chancel  and  the  vestry 
room.  Directly  opposite  is  the  pew 
occupied  at  the  same  period  by  Gov 
ernor  George  Clinton. 

Back  of  the  chancel  is  the  monument 
to  Major-General  Richard  Montgomery, 
who  fell  before  Quebec  in  1775,  crying, 
"  Men  of  New  York,  you  will  not  fail 
to  follow  where  your  general  leads ! " 
Congress  decided  on  the  monument,  and 

Benjamin  Frank 
lin  bought  it  in 
France  for  300 
guineas.  A  pri 
vateer  bringing  it 
to  this  country 
was  captured  by 
a  British  gunboat? 
which  in  turn  was 


Wafhington  Pew 
PAULS  CHAPEL 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

taken,  and  the  monument,  arriving  safe 
here,  was  set  in  place.  The  body  was 
removed  from  its  first  resting-place  in 
Quebec,  and  interred  close  beside  the 
monument  in  1818. 

In  the  burying-ground,  which  has 
been  beside  the  church  since  it  was  built, 
are  the  monuments  of  men  whose 
names  are  associated  with  the  city's  his 
tory  :  Dr.  William  James  Macneven, 
who  raised  chemistry  to  a  science ; 
Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  an  eminent 
jurist  and  brother  of  Robert  Emmet ; 
Christopher  Collis,  who  established  the 
first  water  works  in  the  city, 
and  who  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  constructing  the  Erie 
Canal ;  and  a  host  of  others. 

The  tomb  of  George 
Frederick  Cooke,  the 
tragedian,  is  conspicu 
ous  in  the  centre  of 
the  yard,  facing  the 
main  door  of  the  church. 

77 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  Actor  Cooke  was  born  in  England  in   1756, 
Grave         and  died  in  New  York  in  1812.     Early 

in  life  he   was    a    printer's    apprentice. 

By  1800  he  had  taken  high  rank  among 

tragic  actors. 

The  grave  of  George  L.  Eacker,  who 

killed    the     eldest    son     of    Alexander 

Hamilton  in  a  duel,  is  near  the  Vesey 

Street  railing. 

Astor  The    Astor    House,   occupying    the 

Broadway  block  between  Vesey  and 
Barclay  Streets,  was  opened  in  1836  by 
Boyden,  a  hotel  keeper  of  Boston. 
This  site  had  been  part  of  the  Church 
Farm,  and  as  early  as  1729,  when  there 
were  only  a  few  scattered  farm  houses 
on  the  island  above  what  is  now  Liberty 
Street,  there  was  a  farm  house  on  the 
Astor  House  site  ;  and  from  there  ex 
tended,  on  the  Broadway  line,  a  rope- 
walk.  Prior  to  the  erection  of  the  hotel 
in  1830,  the  site  for  the  most  part  had 
been  occupied  by  the  homes  of  John 
78 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Jacob  Astor,  John  G.  Coster  and  David 
Lydig.  On  a  part  of  the  site,  at  221 
Broadway,  in  1817,  M.  Paff,  popu 
larly  known  as  "  Old  Paff,'*  kept  a  bric- 
a-brac  store.  He  dealt  especially  in 
paintings,  having  the  reputation  of  buy 
ing  worthless  and  old  ones  and  "  restor 
ing"  them  into  masterpieces.  His  was 
the  noted  curiosity-shop  of  the  period. 

Where  Vesev  and  Greenwich   Streets  A  House  of 

.   TTT          _,  ,  Other  Days 

and  West  Broadway  come  together  is  a 
low,  rough-hewn  rock  house.  It  has 
been  used  as  a  shoe  store  since  the  early 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

part  of  the  century.  On  its  roof  is  a 
monster  boot  bearing  the  date  of  1832, 
which  took  part  in  the  Croton  water 
parade  and  a  dozen  other  celebrations. 
In  pre-revolutionary  days,  when  the 
ground  where  the  building  stands  was 
all  Hudson  River,  and  the  water  ex 
tended  as  far  as  the  present  Greenwich 
Street,  according  to  tradition,  this  was  a 
lighthouse.  There  have  been  many 
changes  in  the  outward  appearance,  but 
the  foundation  of  solid  rock  is  the  same 
as  when  the  waters  swept  around  it. 

The  Road  Greenwich  Street  follows  the  line  of  a 
Greenwich  road  which  led  from  the  city  to  Green 
wich  Village.  This  road  was  on  the 
waterside.  It  was  called  Greenwich 
Road.  South  of  Canal  Street,  west  of 
Broadway,  was  a  marshy  tract  known  as 
Lispenard's  Meadows.  Over  this  swamp 
Greenwich  Road  crossed  on  a  raised 
causeway.  When  the  weather  was  bad 
for  any  length  of  time,  the  road  became 
80 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

heavy  and  in  places  was  covered  by  the 
strong  tide  from  the  river.  At  such 
times  travel  took  an  inland  route,  along 
the  Post  Road  (now  the  Bowery)  and 
by  Obelisk  Lane  (now  Astor  Place  and 
Greenwich  Avenue). 

St.  Peter's  Church,  at  the  southeast  St-  Peter's 
corner  of  Barclay  and  Church  Streets, 
the  home  of  the  oldest  Roman  Catholic 
congregation  in  the  city,  was  built  in 
1786,  and  rebuilt  in  1838.  The  con 
gregation  was  formed  in  1783,  although 
mass  was  celebrated  in  private  houses 
before  that  for  the  few  scattered  Catholic 
families. 

The   two    blocks    included    between  Columbia 

College 

Barclay  and  Murray  Streets,  West 
Broadway  and  Church  Street,  were  oc 
cupied  until  1857  by  the  buildings  and 
grounds  of  Columbia  College.  That 
part  of  the  Queen's  Farm  lying  west  of 
Broadway  between  the  present  Barclay 

81 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

and  Murray  Streets — a  strip  of  land 
then  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city — in 
1754  was  given  to  the  governors  of 
King's  College.  During  the  Revolu 
tion  the  college  suspended  exercises,  re 
suming  in  1784  as  Columbia  College 
under  an  act  passed  by  the  Legislature 
of  the  State.  In  1814,  in  consideration 
of  lands  before  granted  to  the  college 
which  had  been  ceded  to  New  Hamp 
shire  in  settlement  of  the  boundary,  the 
college  was  granted  by  the  State  a  tract 
of  farming  land  known  as  the  Hosack 
Botanical  Garden.  This  is  the  twenty 
acres  lying  between  Forty-seventh  and 
Forty-ninth  Streets,  Fifth  and  Sixth 
Avenues.  At  that  time  the  city  ex 
tended  but  little  above  the  City  Hall 
Park,  and  this  land  was  unprofitable  and 
for  many  years  of  considerable  expense 
to  the  college.  By  1839  tne  C^Y  na<^ 
crept  past  the  college  and  the  locality 
being  built  up  the  college  grounds  were 
cramped  between  the  limits  of  two 
82 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

blocks.  In  1854,  Park  Place  was  opened 
through  the  grounds  of  the  college  from 
Church  Street  to  West  Broadway  (then 
called  College  Place).  Until  about 
1816  the  section  of  Park  Place  west  of 
the  college  grounds  was  called  Robinson 
Street.  In  1857  the  college  was  moved 
to  Madison  Avenue,  between  Forty- 
ninth  and  Fiftieth  Streets,  and  in  1890 
it  was  re-organized  on  a  university  basis. 

West  Broadway  was  originally  a  lane  Chapel 
which  wound  from  far  away  Canal  Street 
to  the  Chapel  of  Columbia  College,  and 
was  called  Chapel  Place.  Later  it  be 
came  College  Place.  In  1892  the  street 
was  widened  south  of  Chambers  Street, 
in  order  to  relieve  the  great  traffic  from 
the  north,  and  extended  through  the 
block  from  Barclay  to  Greenwich  Street. 
Evidence  of  the  former  existence  of  the 
old  street  can  be  seen  in  the  pillars  of 
the  elevated  road  on  the  west  side  of 
West  Broadway  at  Murray  Street,  for 

83 


NOOKS     AND     CORNERS 

these  pillars,  once  on  the  sidewalk,  are 
now  several  feet  from  it  in  the  street. 


Bowling 
Green 
Garden 
And  First 
Vauxhall 


In  the  vicinity  of  what  is  now  Green 
wich  and  Warren  Streets,  the  Bowling 
Green  Garden  was  established  in  the 
early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It 
was  a  primitive  forest,  for  there  were  no 
streets  above  Crown  (now  Liberty)  Street 
on  the  west  side,  and  none  above  Frank 
fort  on  the  east.  The  land  on  which 
the  Garden  stood  was  a  leasehold  on  the 
Church  Farm.  The  place  was  given 
the  name  of  the  Vauxhall  Garden  before 
the  middle  of  the  same  century,  and  for 
forty  years  thereafter  was  a  fashionable 
resort  and  sought  to  be  a  copy  of  the 
Vauxhall  in  London.  There  was  danc 
ing  and  music,  and  groves  dimly  lighted 
where  visitors  could  stroll,  and  where 
they  might  sit  at  tables  and  eat.  By  the 
time  the  city  stretched  past  the  locality, 
all  that  was  left  of  the  resort  was  what 
would  now  be  called  a  low  saloon,  and 
84 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

its  pretty  garden  had  been  sold  for 
building  lots.  The  second  Vauxhall  was 
off  the  Bowery,  south  of  Astor  Place. 

The  Stewart  Building,  on  the  east  side  A>  T- 

Stewart's 

of  Broadway,  between  Chambers  and  store 
Reade  Streets,  has  undergone  few  exter 
nal  changes  since  it  was  the  dry  goods 
store  of  Alexander  T.  Stewart.  On  this 
site  stood  Washington  Hall,  which  was 
erected  in  1809.  It  was  a  hotel  of  the 
first  class,  and  contained  the  fashionable 
ball  room  and  banqueting-hall  of  the 
city.  The  building  was  destroyed  by 
fire  July  5,  1844.  The  next  year  Stew 
art,  having  purchased  the  site  from  the 
heirs  of  John  G.  Coster,  began  the  con 
struction  of  his  store.  Stewart  came 
from  Ireland  in  1823,  at  the  age  of 
twenty.  For  a  time  after  his  arrival  he 
was  an  assistant  teacher  in  a  public 
school.  He  opened  a  small  dry  goods 
store,  and  was  successful.  The  Broad 
way  store  was  opened  in  1846.  Four 

85 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

years  later  Stewart  extended  his  building 
so  that  it  reached  Reade  Street.  All 
along  Broadway  by  this  year  business 
houses  were  taking  the  place  of  residen 
ces.  The  Stewart  residence  at  the  north 
west  corner  of  Thirty-fourth  Street  and 
Fifth  Avenue,  was,  at  the  time  it  was 
built,  considered  the  finest  house  in 
America.  Mr.  Stewart  died  in  1876, 
leaving  a  fortune  of  fifty  millions.  His 
body  was  afterwards  stolen  from  St. 
Mark's  Churchyard  at  Tenth  Street 
and  Second  Avenue. 

At  Broadway  and  Duane  Street, 
roasted  chestnuts  were  first  sold  in  the 
street.  A  Frenchman  stationed  himself 
at  this  corner  in  1828,  and  sold  chest 
nuts  there  for  so  many  years  that  he 
came  to  be  reckoned  as  a  living  land 
mark. 

At  the  same  corner  was  the  popular 
Cafe  des  Mille  Colonnes,  the  proprietor 
of  which,  F.  Palmo,  afterwards  built  and 

86 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

conducted  Palmo's  Opera  House  in 
Chambers  Street. 

In  a  store  window  on  Broadway,  close  First  Sewing 

J  Machine 

to  Duane  Street,  the  first  sewing-machine 
was  exhibited.  A  young  woman  sat  in 
the  window  to  exhibit  the  working  of  the 
invention  to  passers-by.  It  was  regarded 
as  an  impracticable  toy,  and  was  looked  at 
daily  by  many  persons  who  considered  it 
a  curiosity  unworthy  of  serious  attention. 


At  Nos.  314  and  316  Broadway,  on 
the  east  side  of  the  street  just  south  of 
Pearl  Street,  stood  Masonic  Hall,  the 
cornerstone  of  which  was  laid  June  24, 
1826.  It  looked  imposing  among  the 
structures  of  the  street,  over  which  it 
towered,  and  was  of  the  Gothic  style  of 
architecture.  While  it  was  in  course  of 
erection,  William  Morgan  published  his 
book  which  claimed  to  reveal  the  secrets 
of  masonry.  His  mysterious  disappear 
ance  followed,  and  shortly  after,  the  rise 
87 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

of  the  anti-Masonic  party  and  popular 
excitement  put  masonry  under  such  a 
ban  that  the  house  was  sold  by  the 
Order,  and  the  name  of  the  building  was 
changed  to  Gothic  Hall.  On  the  second 
floor  was  a  room  looked  upon  as  the 
most  elegant  in  the  United  States :  an 
imitation  of  the  Chapel  of  Henry  VIII, 
it  was  of  Gothic  architecture,  furnished 
in  richness  of  detail  and  appropriateness 
of  design,  and  was  one  hundred  feet  long, 
fifty  wide  and  twenty-five  high.  In  it 
were  held  public  gatherings  of  social  and 
political  nature. 

New  York  The  two  blocks  now  enclosed  by 
Duane,  Worth,  Broadway  and  Church 
Streets,  were  occupied  by  the  buildings 
and  grounds  of  the  New  York  Hospital. 
Thomas  Street  was  afterwardscut  through 
the  grounds.  As  the  City  Hospital, 
the  institution  had  been  projected  before 
the  War  of  the  Revolution.  The  build 
ing  was  completed  about  1775.  During 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

the  war  it  was  used  as  a  barrack.  In 
1791  it  was  opened  for  the  admission  of 
patients.  On  the  lawn,  which  extended 
to  Broadway,  various  societies  gathered 
on  occasions  of  annual  parades  and  cele 
brations.  The  hospital  buildings  were 
in  the  centre  of  the  big  enclosure.  At 
the  northern  end  of  the  lawn,  the  present 
corner  of  Broadway  and  Worth  Street, 
was  the  New  Jerusalem  Church. 

On  the  corner  of  West  Broadway  and  Riley's  Fifth 

T-,        11-0  T-»M       >      t-'ri     TTT       ^    Ward  Hotel 

rranklin  Street  was  Riley  s  rifth  Ward 
Hotel,  which  was  a  celebrated  place 
in  its  day.  It  was  the  prototype  of  the 
modern  elaborately  fitted  saloon,  but 
was  then  a  place  of  instruction  and  a 
moral  resort.  In  a  large  room,  reached 
by  wide  stairs  from  the  street,  were 
objects  of  interest  and  art  in  glass 
cases — pictures  of  statesmen,  uniforms 
of  the  soldiers  of  all  nations,  Indian  war 
implements,  famous  belongings  of  cele 
brated  men,  as  well  as  such  simple 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

curiosities  as  a  two-headed  calf.  On 
Franklin  Street,  before  Riley's  door, 
was  a  marble  statue  minus  a  head,  one 
arm  and  sundry  other  parts.  It  was 
all  that  remained  of  the  statue  of  the 
Earl  of  Chatham,  William  Pitt,  which 
had  stood  in  Wall  Street  until  dragged 
down  by  British  soldiers.  For  twenty- 
five  years  the  battered  wreck  had  lain 
in  the  corporation  yard,  until  found  and 
honored  with  a  place  before  his  door  by 
Riley.  At  the  latter's  death  the  His 
torical  Society  took  the  remains  of  the 
statue,  and  it  is  in  its  rooms  yet. 

The  passage  of  Washington  through 
the  island  is  commemorated  by  a  tablet 
on  a  warehouse  at  255  West  Street, 
near  Laight,  which  is  inscribed  : 


TO  MARK.  THE  LANDING  PLACE  OF 
GENERAL  GEORGE  WASHINGTON, 

JUNE   25,   1775, 
ON  HIS  WAY  TO  CAMBRIDGE 

TO    COMMAND 
THE   AMERICAN  ARMY. 


90 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

St.  John's  Church  of  Trinity  Parish,  St.  John's 

J  it-1      Church 

in  Varick  Street  close  to  Beach,  was  built 
in  1807.  When  the  church  was  fin 
ished  St.  John's  Park,  occupying  the 
entire  block  opposite — between  Varick 
and  Hudson,  Laight  and  Beach  Streets — 
was  established  for  the  exclusive  use  of 
residents  whose  houses  faced  it.  Before 
it  was  established,  the  place  had  been 
a  sandy  beach  that  stretched  to  the  river. 
The  locality  became  the  most  fashion 
able  of  the  city  in  1825.  By  1 850  there 
had  begun  a  gradual  decline,  for  per 
sons  of  wealth  were  moving  uptown, 
and  it  degenerated  to  a  tenement-house 
level  after  1869,  when  the  park  disap 
peared  beneath  the  foundations  of  the 
big  freight  depot  which  now  occu 
pies  the  site. 

Around  the  corner  from  the  church, 
a  block  away  in  Beach  Street,  is  a  tiny 
park,  one  of  the  last  remnants  of  the 
Annetje  Jans  Farm.  The  bit  of  farm 
is  carefully  guarded  now,  much  more  so 

91 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

than  was  the  entire  beautiful  tract.  It 
forms  a  triangle  and  is  fenced  in  by  an 
iron  railing,  with  one  gate,  that  is  fast 
barred  and  never  opened.  There  is  one 
struggling  tree,  wrapped  close  in  winter 
with  burlap,  but  it  seems  to  feel  its 
loneliness  and  does  not  thrive. 

The  Red  From  the  centre  of  St.  John's  Park 
on  the  west,  Hubert  Street  extends 
to  the  river.  This  street,  now  given 
over  to  manufacturers,  was,  in  1824, 
the  chief  promenade  of  the  city  next 
to  the  Battery  Walk.  It  led  directly 
to  the  Red  Fort  at  the  river.  The  fort 
was  some  distance  from  the  shore.  It 
was  built  early  in  the  century,  was 
round  and  of  brick,  and  a  bridge  led  to 
it.  It  was  never  of  any  practical  use, 
but,  like  Castle  Garden,  was  used  as 
a  pleasure  resort. 

Lispenard's       Early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  An- 

Meadows 


92 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Trinity  a  section  of  the  Church  Farm 
which  took  in  the  Dominie's  Bouwerie, 
a  property  lying  between  where  Broad 
way  is  and  the  Hudson  River.  The 
southern  and  northern  lines  were  ap 
proximately  the  present  Reade  and 
Canal  Streets.  It  was  a  wild  spot,  re 
maining  in  a  primitive  condition — part 
marsh,  part  swamp — covered  with 
dwarf  trees  and  tangled  underbrush. 
Cattle  wandered  into  this  region  and 
were  lost.  It  was  a  dangerous  place,  too, 
for  men  who  wandered  into  it.  To  live 
near  it  was  unhealthy,  because  of  the 
foul  gases  which  abounded.  It  seemed 
to  be  a  worthless  tract.  About  the  year 
1730,  Anthony  Rutgers  suggested  to  the 
King  in  Council  that  he  would  have  this 
land  drained  and  made  wholesome  and 
useful  provided  it  was  given  to  him. 
His  argument  was  so  strong  and  sensi 
ble  that  the  land — seventy  acres,  now  in 
the  business  section  of  the  city — was 
given  him  and  he  improved  it.  At  the 

93 


NOOKS     AND      COPvNERS 

northern  edge  of  the  improved  waste 
lived  Leonard  Lispenard,  in  a  farm 
house  which  was  then  in  a  northern 
suburb  of  the  city,  bounded  by  what  is 
Hudson,  Canal  and  Vestry  Streets. 
Lispenard  married  the  daughter  of 
Rutgers,  and  the  land  falling  to  him  it 
became  Lispenard's  Meadows.  In  Lis- 
penard's  time  Broadway  ended  where 
White  Street  is  now  and  a  set  of  bars 
Broadwa  cl°sed  the  thoroughfare  against  cows 
that  wandered  along  it.  The  one  bit 
of  the  meadows  that  remains  is  the  tiny 
park  at  the  foot  of  Canal  Street  on  the 
west  side.  Anthony  Rutgers'  home 
stead  was  close  by  what  is  Broadway 
and  Thomas  Street.  After  his  death  in 
1750  it  became  a  public  house,  and, 
with  the  surrounding  grounds,  was 
called  Ranelagh  Garden,  a  popular 
place  in  its  time. 


Canal  On    a  line    with    the    present   Canal 

Street,    a   stream    ran    from  the    Fresh 

94 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Water  Pond  to  the  Hudson  River,  at 
the  upper  edge  of  Lispenard's  Mead 
ows.  A  project,  widely  and  favorably 
considered  in  1825,  but  which  came  to 
nothing,  advocated  the  extension  of 
Canal  Street,  as  a  canal,  from-  river  to 
river.  The  street  took  its  name  natur 
ally  from  the  little  stream  which  was 
called  a  canal.  When  the  street  was 
filled  in  and  improved,  the  stream  was 
continued  through  a  sewer  leading  from 
Centre  Street.  The  locality  at  the  foot 
of  the  street  has  received  the  local  title 
of  "  Suicide  Slip  "  because  of  the  num 
ber  of  persons  in  recent  years  who  have 
ended  their  lives  by  jumping  into  Hud 
son  River  at  that  point. 

In  Broadway,  between  Grand  and 
Howard  Streets,  in  1819,  West's  circus 
was  opened.  In  1827  this  was  con 
verted  into  a  theatre  called  the  Broad 
way.  Later  it  was  occupied  by  Tatter- 
sail's  horse  market. 

95 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Original  Next  door  to  Tattersall's,  at  No.  444 

Theatre  Broadway,  the  original  Olympic  Thea 
tre  was  built  in  1837.  W.  R.  Blake 
and  Henry  E.  Willard  built  and  man 
aged  the  house.  It  was  quite  small  and 
their  aim  had  been  to  present  plays  of  a 
high  order  of  merit  by  an  exceptionally 
good  company.  The  latter  included 
besides  Blake,  Mrs.  Maeder  and  George 
Barrett.  After  a  few  months  of  struggle 
against  unprofitable  business,  prices 
were  lowered.  Little  success  was  met 
with,  the  performances  being  of  too  ar 
tistic  a  nature  to  be  popular,  and  Blake 
gave  up  the  effort  and  the  house.  In 
December,  1839,  Wm.  Mitchell  leased 
the  house  and  gave  performances  at  low 
prices. 

At  No.  453  Broadway,  between  Grand 
and  Howard  Streets,  in  1 844  John  Little- 
field,  a  corn  doctor,  set  up  a  place,  desig 
nating  himself  as  a  chiropodist — an  occu 
pation  before  unknown  under  that  title. 
96 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

At  No.  485  Broadway,  near  Broome 
Street,  Brougham's  Lyceum  was  built 
in  1850,  and  opened  in  December  with 
an  u  occasional  rigmarole  "  and  a  farce. 
In  1852  the  house  was  opened,  Sep 
tember  8,  as  Wallack's  Lyceum,  hav 
ing  been  acquired  by  James  W.  Wai- 
lack.  Wallack  ended  his  career  as  an 
actor  in  this  house.  In  1861  he  re 
moved  to  his  new  theatre,  corner  Thir 
teenth  Street  and  Broadway.  Still  \ 
later  the  Lyceum  was  called  the 
Broadway  Theatre. 

"  Murderers'   Row "   has    its  start 
where  Watts  Street  ends  at  Sullivan, 
midway  of  the  block  between  Grand 
and  Broome  Streets.    It  could  not  be 
identified  by  its  name,  for  it  is  not  a 
"  row "    at    all,    merely    an    ill- 
smelling  alley,  an  arcade  extend 
ing  through  a  block  of  battered 
tenements.     After  running  half 
its  course  through  the  block,  the 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

alley  is  broken  by  an  intersecting  space 
between  houses — a  space  that  is  taken 
up  by  push  carts,  barrels,  tumble- down 
wooden  balconies  and  lines  of  drying 
clothes.  "  Murderers'  Row "  is  cele 
brated  in  police  annals  as  a  crime  centre. 
But  the  evil  doers  were  driven  out  long 
years  ago  and  the  houses  given  over  to 
Italians.  These  people  are  excessively 
poor,  and  have  such  a  hard  struggle  for 
life  as  to  have  no  desire  to  regard  the 
laws  of  the  Health  Board.  Constant 
complaints  are  made  that  the  houses  are 
hovels  and  the  alley  a  breeding-place 
for  disease. 

Greenwich  Greenwich    Village  sprang  from  the 

oldest  known  settlement  on  the  Island 
of  Manhattan.  It  was  an  Indian  vil 
lage,  clustering  about  the  site  of  the 
present  West  Washington  Market,  at 
the  foot  of  Gansevoort  Street,  when 
Hendrick  Hudson  reached  the  island, 
in  1609. 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

The  region  was  a  fertile  one,  and  its 
natural  drainage  afforded  it  sanitary  ad 
vantages  which  even  to  this  day  make 
it  a  desirable  place  of  residence.  There 
was  abundance  of  wild  fowl  and  the 
waters  were  alive  with  half  a  hundred 
varieties  of  fish.  There  were  sand  hills, 
sometimes  rising  to  a  height  of  a  hun 
dred  feet,  while  to  the  south  was  a  marsh 
tenanted  by  wild  fowl  and  crossed  by  a 
brook  flowing  from  the  north.  It  was 
this  Manetta  brook  which  was  to  mark 
the  boundary  of  Greenwich  Village 
when  Governor  Kieft  set  aside  the  land 
as  a  bouwerie  for  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company.  The  brook  arose  about 
where  Twenty-first  Street  now  crosses 
Fifth  Avenue,  flowed  to  the  southwest 
edge  of  Union  Square,  thence  to  Fifth 
Avenue  and  Eighth  Street,  across  where 
Washington  Square  is,  along  the  line  of 
Minetta  Street,  and  then  to  Hudson 
River,  between  Houston  and  Charlton 
Streets. 

99 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 


Sir  Peter 
Warren 


Evolution  of 

Greenwich 

Streets 


The  interests  of  the  little  settlement 
were  greatly  advanced  in  1744,  when 
Sir  Peter  Warren,  later  the  hero  of 
Louisburg,  married  Susannah  De  Lan- 
cey  and  went  to  live  there,  purchasing 
three  hundred  acres  of  land. 

Epidemics  in  the  city  from  time  to 
time  drove  many  persons  to  Greenwich 
as  a  place  of  refuge.  But  it  remained 
for  the  fatal  yellow-fever  epidemic  of 
1822,  when  384  persons  died  in  the 
city,  to  make  Greenwich  a  thriving  sub 
urb  instead  of  a  struggling  village. 
Twenty  thousand  persons  fled  the  city, 
the  greater  number  settling  in  Green 
wich.  Banks,  public  offices,  stores  of 
every  sort  were  hurriedly  opened, 
and  whole  blocks  of  buildings  sprang 
up  in  a  few  days.  Streets  were  left 
where  lanes  had  been,  and  corn-fields 
were  transformed  into  business  and 
dwelling  blocks. 

The  sudden  influx  of  people  and  con 
sequent  trade  into  the  village  brought 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

about  the  immediate  need  for  street  im 
provements.  Existing  streets  were 
lengthened,  footpaths  and  alleys  were 
widened,  but  all  was  done  without  any 
regard  to  regularity.  The  result  was 
the  jumble  of  streets  still  to  be  met  with 
in  that  region,  where  the  thoroughfares 
are  often  short  and  often  end  in  a  cul- 
de-sac. 

In  time  the  streets  of  the  City  Plan 
crept  up  to  those  of  Greenwich  Village, 
and  the  village  was  swallowed  up  by  the 
city.  But  it  was  not  swallowed  up  so 
completely  but  that  the  irregular  lines 
of  the  village  streets  are  plainly  to  be 
seen  on  any  city  map. 

Near  where  Spring  Street  crosses 
Hudson  there  was  established,  about 
1765,  Brannan's  Garden,  on  the  north 
ern  edge  of  Lispenard's  Meadows.  It 
was  like  the  modern  road-house.  Green 
wich  Road  was  close  to  it,  and  pleasure- 
seekers,  who  thronged  the  road  on  the 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

way  from  the  city  to  Greenwich  Village, 
were  the  chief  guests  of  the  house. 

Duane  Street  Crowded  close  between  dwellings  on 
the  east  side  of  Hudson  Street,  fifty  feet 
south  of  Spring,  is  the  Duane  M.  E. 
Church,  a  quaint-looking  structure,  half 
church,  half  business  building.  This  is 
the  successor  of  the  North  Church,  the 
North  River  Church  and  the  Duane 
Street  Church,  founded  in  1797,  which, 
before  it  moved  to  Hudson  Street,  in 
1863,  was  in  Barley  (now  Duane)  Street, 
between  Hudson  and  Greenwich  Streets. 

In  Spring  Street,  near  Varick,  is  the 
Spring  Street  Presbyterian  Church, 
which  was  built  in  1825.  Before  its 
erection  the  "old"  Spring  Street  Pres 
byterian  Church  stood  on  the  site,  hav 
ing  been  built  in  181 1. 

Richmond        Although  the  leveling  vandalism  of  a 
great  city   has  removed   every  trace  of 


102 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Richmond  Hill,  the  block  encircled  by 
Macdougal,  Charlton,  Varick  and  Van- 
dam  Streets,  is  crowded  thick  with 
memories  of  men  and  events  of  a  past 
generation. 

Long  before  there  was  a  thought  of 
the  city  getting  beyond  the  wall  that 
hemmed  in  a  few  scattering  houses,  and 
when  the  Indian  settlement,  which  after 
wards  became  Greenwich  Village,  kept 
close  to  the  water's  edge,  a  line  of  low 
sand  hills  called  the  Zandtberg,  stretched 
their  curved  way  from  where  now  Eighth 
Street  crosses  Broadway,  ending  where 
Varick  Street  meets  Vandam.  At  the 
base  of  the  hill  to  the  north  was  Ma- 
netta  Creek. 

The  final  elevation  became  known  as 
Richmond  Hill,  and  that,  with  a  con 
siderable  tract  of  land,  was  purchased 
by  Abraham  Mortier,  commissioner  of 
the  forces  of  George  III.  of  England. 
In  1760  he  built  his  home  on  the  hill 
and  called  it  also  Richmond  Hill. 
103 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  house  was  occupied  by  General 
Washington  as  his  headquarters  in  1776, 
and  by  Vice- President  Adams  in  1788. 
Aaron  Burr  obtained  it  in  1797,  enter 
tained  lavishly  there,  improved  the 
grounds,  constructed  an  artificial  lake 
Pond8  l°ng  known  as  Burr's  Pond,  and  set  up 
a  beautiful  entrance  gateway  at  what  is 
now  Macdougal  and  Spring  Streets, 
which  he  passed  through  in  1804  when 
he  went  to  fight  his  duel  with  Alexander 
Hamilton. 

Burr  gave  up  the  house  in  1807,  and, 
the  hill  being  cut  away  in  the  opening 
of  streets  in  1817,  the  house  was  low 
ered  and  rested  on  the  north  side  of 
Charlton  Street  just  east  of  Varick.  It 
became  a  theatre  later  and  remained 
such  until  it  was  torn  down  in  1849.  A 
quiet  row  of  brick  houses  occupies  the 
site  now. 

St.  John's        What  is   now  a   pleasant   little  park 

rturying-  A 

Ground       enclosed  by  Hudson,  Leroy  and  Clark- 

104 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

son  Streets,  was  part  of  a  plot  set  aside 
for  a  graveyard  when  St.  John's  Chapel 
was  built.  It  was  called  St.  John's 
Burying-Ground.  Its  early  limits  ex 
tended  to  Carmine  Street  on  one  side 
and  to  Morton  Street  on  the  other. 
Under  the  law  burials  ceased  there 
about  1850.  There  were  10,000  burials 
in  the  grounds,  which,  unlike  the  other 
Trinity  graveyards,  came  to  be  neg 
lected.  The  tombstones  crumbled  to 
decay,  the  weeds  grew  rank  about  them 
and  the  trees  remained  untrimmed  and 
neglected. 

About  1890  property  owners  in  the 
vicinity  began  steps  to  have  the  burying- 
ground  made  into  a  park.  Conservative 
Trinity  resisted  the  project  until  the  city 
won  a  victory  in  the  courts  and  the 
property  was  bought.  Relatives  of  the 
dead  were  notified  and  some  of  the 
bodies  were  removed.  In  September, 
1 897,  the  actual  work  of  transforming 
the  graveyard  into  a  park  was  begun. 

105 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Laborers  with  crowbars  knocked  over 
the  tombstones  that  still  remained  and 
putting  the  fragments  in  a  pit  at  the 
eastern  end  of  the  grounds  covered 
them  with  earth  to  make  a  play-spot  for 
children. 


Church 


At  Morton  and  Bedford  Streets  is 
the  Bedford  Street  M.  E.  Church. 
The  original  structure  was  built  in  1810 
in  a  green  pasture.  Beside  it  was  a 
quiet  graveyard,  reduced  somewhat  in 
1830  when  the  church  was  enlarged, 
and  wiped  out  when  the  land  became 
valuable  and  the  present  structure  was 
set  up  in  1  840.  The  church  was  built 
for  the  first  congregation  of  Methodists  in 
Greenwich  Village,  formed  in  1  808  at  the 
house  of  Samuel  Walgrove  at  the  north 
side  of  Morton  Street  close  to  Bleecker. 


Thomas  Paine  —  famous  for   his  con- 


Where 

PaineTived 

And  Died       nection  with  the  American  and   French 

revolutions,  but  chiefly  for   his  works, 

106 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

"  The  Age  of  Reason,"  favoring  Deism 
against  Atheism  and  Christianity  ;  and 
"  Common  Sense/'  maintaining  the 
cause  of  the  American  colonies — died 
in  Greenwich  Village  June  8,1809,  hav 
ing  retired  there  in  1802. 

The  final  years  of  his  life  were  passed 
in  a  small  house  in  Herring  (now 
Bleecker)  Street.  On  the  site  is  a  double 
tenement  numbered  No.  293  Bleecker 
Street,  southeast  corner  Barrow.  This 
last  named  street  was  not  opened  until 
shortly  after  Paine's  death.  It  was  first 
called  Reason  Street,  a  compliment  to  the 
author  of e<  The  Age  of  Reason."  This 
was  corrupted  to  Raisin  Street.  In  1828 
it  was  given  its  present  name. 

Shortly  before  his  death  Paine  moved 
to  a  frame  building  set  in  the  centre  of 
a  nearby  field.  Grove  Street  now 
passes  over  the  site  which  is  between 
Bleecker  and  West  Fourth  Streets,  the 
back  of  the  building  having  been  where 
No.  59  Grove  Street  is  now. 
107 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

About  the  time  that  Barrow  Street 
was  opened  Grove  Street  was  cut 
through.  It  was  called  Cozine  Street, 
then  Columbia,  then  Burrows,  and 
finally,  in  1829,  was  changed  to  Grove. 
When  the  street  was  widened  in  1836, 
the  house  in  which  Paine  had  died, 
until  then  left  standing,  was  demolished. 

Admiral  The  homestead  of  Admiral  Sir  Peter 

Warren  and  . 

His  Family  Warren  occupied  the  ground  now  taken 
up  in  the  solidly  built  block  bounded 
by  Charles,  Fourth,  Bleecker  and  Perry 
Streets.  The  house  was  built  in  1744, 
in  the  midst  of  green  fields,  and  for 
more  than  a  century  it  was  the  most 
important  dwelling  in  Greenwich.  Ad 
miral  Warren  of  the  British  Navy  was, 
next  to  the  Governor,  the  most  import 
ant  person  in  the  Province.  His  house 
was  the  favorite  resort  of  social  and 
influential  New  York.  The  Admiral's 
influence  and  popularity  had  a  marked 
effect  on  the  village,  which,  by  his 

108 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

coming,  was  given  an  impetus  that  made 
it  a  thriving  place. 

Of  the  three  daughters  of  Admiral 
Warren,  Charlotte,  the  eldest,  mar 
ried  Willoughby,  Earl  of  Abingdon ; 
the  second,  Ann,  married  Charles  Fitz- 
roy,  afterwards  Baron  Southampton, 
and  Susannah,  the  youngest,  married 
William  Skinner,  a  Colonel  of  Foot. 
These  marriages  had  their  effect  also  on 
Greenwich  Village,  serving  to  continue 
the  prosperity  of  the  place.  Roads 
which  led  through  the  district,  of  which 
the  Warren  family  controlled  a  great 
part,  were  named  in  honor  of  the  differ 
ent  family  branches.  The  only  name 
now  surviving  is  that  of  Abingdon 
Square. 

In  the  later  years  of  his  life,  Sir  Peter 
Warren  represented  the  City  of  West 
minster  in  Parliament.  He  was  buried 
in  Westminster  Abbey. 

In  1796  the  State  Prison  was  built  on 
109 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

State  about  four  acres  of  ground,  surrounded 

by  high  walls,  and  taking  in  the  territory 
now  enclosed  by  Washington,  West, 
Christopher  and  Perry  Streets.  The 
site  is  now,  for  the  most  part,  occupied 
by  a  brewery,  but  traces  of  the  prison 
walls  are  yet  to  be  seen  in  those 
of  the  brewery.  There  was  a  wharf  at 
the  foot  of  Christopher  Street.  In  1826 
the  prison  was  purchased  by  the  Cor 
poration  of  the  State.  The  construction 
of  a  new  State  Prison  had  begun  at  Sing 
Sing  in  1 825.  In  1828  the  male  prison 
ers  were  transferred  to  Sing  Sing,  and 
the  female  prisoners  the  next  year. 

The  yard  of  the  early  prison  extended 
down    to   the   river ,    there   were   fields 

Convict  about  and  a  wide  stretch  of  beach.  It 
was  here  that  the  first  system  of  prison 
manufactures  was  organized.  A  convict 
named  Noah  Gardner,  who  was  a  shoe 
maker,  induced  the  prison  officials  to  per 
mit  him  the  use  of  his  tools.  In  a  short 
time  he  had  trained  most  of  the  con- 


OF      OLD      NEW      YORK 

victs  into  a  skilled  body  of  shoemakers. 

The  gathering  together  of  a  number 
of  convicts  in  a  workroom  was  at  first 
productive  of  some  disorder,  owing 
to  the  difficulty  of  keeping  them  under 
proper  discipline  under  the  new  con 
ditions.  In  1799  came  the  first  riot. 
The  keepers  fired  upon  and  killed  sev 
eral  convicts.  There  was  another  re 
volt  in  1803. 

Gardner  had  been  found  guilty  of 
forgery,  but  was  reprieved  on  the  gal 
lows  through  the  influence  of  the  Society 
of  Friends,  of  which  he  was  a  member, 
and  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment. 
Because  of  his  services  in  organizing  the 
prison  work,  he  was  liberated  after  serv 
ing  seven  years.  Becoming  then  a  shoe 
manufacturer,  he  was  successful  for  sev 
eral  years,  when  he  absconded,  taking 
with  him  a  pretty  Quakeress,  and  was 
never  heard  of  again. 

Although  the  prison  has  been  swept 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 


Quaint          away,  an  idea  of  its  locality  can  be  had 


Houses  in       r  111*11*  i  •  i 

wiehawken  fr°m  tne  l°w  buildings  at  the  west  side 


Street 


of  nearby  Wiehawken  Street.  These 
buildings  have  stood  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  having  been  erected 
before  the  prison. 

That  part  of  Greenwich  Village  that 
was  transformed  from  fields  into  a  town 
in  a  few  days,  during  the  yellow  fever 
scare  of  1822,  centered  at  the  point 
where  West  Eleventh  Street  crosses 
West  Fourth  Street.  At  this  juncture 
was  a  cornfield  on  which,  in  two  days, 
a  hotel  capable  of  accommodating  three 
hundred  guests  was  built.  At  the  same 


Old  Houses 
•Wiebdwkcn  St- 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

time  a  hundred  other  houses  sprang  up, 
as  if  by  magic,  on  all  sides. 

Bank  Street  was  named  in  1799.  Bank  Street 
The  year  previous  a  clerk  in  the  Bank 
of  New  York  on  Wall  Street  was  one  of 
the  earliest  victims  of  yellow  fever,  and 
the  officials  decided  to  take  precautions 
in  case  of  the  bank  being  quarantined  at 
a  future  time.  Eight  lots  were  pur 
chased  on  a  then  nameless  lane  in  Green 
wich  Village.  The  bank  was  erected 
there,  and  gave  the  lane  the  name  of 
Bank  Street. 

Washington  Square  was  once  a  Pot-  Washington 

to  Square 

ter's  Field.  A  meadow  was  purchased 
by  the  city  for  this  purpose  in  1789, 
and  the  pauper  graveyard  was  estab 
lished  about  where  the  Washington 
Arch  is  now. 

Manetta  Creek,  coming  from  the 
north,  flowed  to  the  west  of  the  arch 
site,  crossed  to  what  is  now  the  western 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

portion  of  the  Square,  ran  through  the 
present  Minetta  Street  and  on  to  the 
river.  In  1795,  during  a  yellow  fever 
epidemic,  the  field  was  used  as  a  com 
mon  graveyard.  In  1797  the  pauper 
graveyard  which  had  been  in  the  present 
Madison  Square,  was  abandoned  in  favor 
of  this  one.  There  was  a  gallows  on 
the  ground  and  criminals  were  executed 
and  interred  on  the  spot  as  late  as  1822. 
In  1823  the  Potter's  Field  was  aban 
doned  and  removed  to  the  present 
Bryant  Park  at  Forty-second  Street  and 
Sixth  Avenue.  In  1827,  three  and  one 


Looking  South  from 
Minetta  Lane 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

half  acres  of  ground  were  added  to  the 
plot  and  the  present  Washington  Square 
was  opened. 

Past  the  pauper  graveyard  ran  an  Obelisk  Lane 
inland  road  to  Greenwich  Village.  This 
extended  from  the  Post  Road  (now  the 
Bowery)  at  the  present  Astor  Place  near 
Cooper  Union,  continued  in  a  direct 
line  to  about  the  position  of  the  Wash 
ington  Arch,  and  from  that  point  to  the 
present  Eighth  Avenue  just  above  Fif 
teenth  Street.  This  road,  established 
through  the  fields  in  1768,  was  called 
Greenwich  Lane.  It  was  also  known 
as  Monument  Lane  and  Obelisk  Lane. 
A  small  section  of  it  still  exists  in  Astor 
Place  from  Bowery  to  Broadway.  A 
larger  section  is  Greenwich  Avenue  from 
Eighth  to  Fourteenth  Streets.  Monu 
ment  Lane  took  its  name  from  a  monu 
ment  at  Fifteenth  Street  where  the  road 
ended,  which  had  been  erected  to  the 
memory  of  General  Wolfe,  the  hero  of 

"5 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Quebec.  The  monument  disappeared 
in  a  mysterious  way  during  the  British 
occupation.  It  is  thought  to  have  been 
destroyed  by  soldiers. 

Graveyard  A  few  feet  east  of  Sixth  Avenue,  on 

street  the  south  side  of  Eleventh  Street,  is  a 

brick  wall  and  railing,  behind  which  can 
be  seen  several  battered  tombstones  in 
a  triangular  plot  of  ground.  This  is 
all  that  is  left  of  a  Jewish  graveyard 
established  almost  a  century  ago. 

Milligan's  Lane  was  the  continuation 
of  Amos  (now  West  Tenth)  Street,  from 
Greenwich  Avenue  to  Twelfth  Street 
where  it  joined  the  Union  Road.  This 
lane  struck  the  line  of  Sixth  Avenue 
where  Eleventh  Street  is  now.  At  the 
southwest  corner  of  this  junction  the 
course  of  the  lane  can  be  seen  yet  in  the 
peculiar  angle  of  the  side  wall  of  a 
building  there,  and  in  a  similar  angle  of 
other  houses  near  by.  Close  by  this 
corner  the  second  graveyard  of  Shearith 

116 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Israel  Synagogue  was  established  early 
in  this  century.  It  took  the  place  of 
the  Beth  Haim,  or  Place  of  Rest,  down 
town,  a  remnant  of  which  is  to  be  seen 
in  New  Bowery  off  Chatham  Square. 

The  Eleventh  Street  graveyard,  es-  Milligan's 
tablished  in  the  midst  of  green  fields, 
fronted  on  Milligan's  Lane  and  extended 
back  no  feet.  When  Eleventh  Street 
was  cut  through  under  the  conditions 
of  the  City  Plan,  in  1830,  it  passed 
directly  through  the  graveyard,  cutting 
it  away  so  that  only  the  tiny  portion 
now  there  was  left.  At  that  time  a  new 
place  of  burial  was  opened  in  Twenty- 
first  Street  west  of  Sixth  Avenue. 

At  a  point  just  behind  the  house  Union 
numbered  33  Eleventh  Street,  midway 
of  the  block  between  Fifth  and  Sixth 
Avenues,  Union  Road  had  its  starting- 
point.  It  was  a  short  road,  forming 
a  direct  communicating  line  between 
Skinner  and  Southampton  Roads.  Skin 
ny 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

ner  Road,  running  from  Hudson  River 
along  the  line  of  the  present  Christopher 
Street,  ended  where  Union  Road  began  ; 
and  Union  Road  met  Southampton  at 
what  is  now  the  corner  of  Fifteenth 
Street  and  Seventh  Avenue.  This 
point  was  also  the  junction  of  South 
ampton  and  Great  Kiln  Roads. 

Evidences  of  the  Union  Road  are 
still  to  be  seen  in  Twelfth  Street,  at 
the  projecting  angle  of  the  houses  num 
bered  43  and  45.  It  was  just  at  this 
point  that  Milligan's  Lane  ended.  On 
Thirteenth  Street,  the  course  of  Union 
Road  is  shown  by  the  slanting  wall  of  a 
big  business  building,  numbered  36. 

First  In  Twelfth  Street,  between  Sixth  and 

Seventh  Avenues,  is  the  First  Reformed 
Presbyterian  Church.  The  congregation 
was  started  as  a  praying  society  in  1790 
at  the  house  of  John  Agnew  at  No.  9 
Peck  Slip.  In  1798  the  congregation 
worshipped  in  a  school  house  in  Cedar 

118 


OF     OLD      NEW      YORK 

Street.  They  soon  after  built  their  first 
church  at  Nos.  39  and  41  Chambers 
Street,  where  the  American  News  Com 
pany  building  is  now.  It  was  a  frame 
building,  and  was  succeeded  in  1 8 1 8  by 
a  brick  building  on  the  same  site.  In 
1834  a  new  church  was  erected  at  Prince 
and  Marion  Streets.  The  foundation 
for  the  present  church  was  laid  in  1848, 
and  the  church  occupied  it  in  the  follow 
ing  year. 

The  New  York  Society  Library,  at  Society 
107  University  Place,  near  Fourteenth 
Street,  claims  to  be  the  oldest  institu 
tion  of  its  kind  in  America.  It  is  cer 
tainly  the  most  interesting  in  historical 
associations,  richness  of  old  literature 
and  art  works.  It  is  the  direct  outcome 
of  the  library  established  in  1700, 
with  quarters  in  the  City  Hall,  in  Wall 
Street,  by  Richard,  Earl  of  Bellomont, 
the  Governor  of  New  York. 

In  1754  an   association  was   incorpo- 
119 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

rated  for  carrying  on  a  library,  and  their 
collection,  added  to  the  library  already 
in  existence,  was  called  the  City  Li 
brary.  The  Board  of  Trustees  con 
sisted  of  the  most  prominent  men  in 
the  city.  In  1772  a  charter  was  granted 
by  George  III,  under  the  name  of  the 
New  York  Society  Library. 

During  the  Revolutionary  War  the 
books  became  spoil  for  British  soldiers. 
Many  were  destroyed  and  many  sold. 
After  the  war  the  remains  of  the  library 
were  gathered  from  various  parts  of  the 
city  and  again  collected  in  the  City  Hall. 
In  1784  the  members  of  the  Federal 
Congress  deliberated  in  the  library 
rooms.  In  1795  the  library  was  moved 
to  Nassau  Street,  opposite  the  Middle 
Dutch  Church;  in  1836  to  Chambers 
Street;  in  1841  to  Broadway  and  Leon 
ard  Street;  in  1853  to  the  Bible  House, 
and  in  1856  to  the  present  building. 

At   the    point    that  is   now  Seventh 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Avenue  and  Fifteenth  Street,  then  in-  Great  Kiln 
tersectedby  the  Union  Road,  the  Great 
Kiln  Road  ended.  Its  continuation 
was  called  Southampton  Road.  From 
that  point  it  continued  to  Nineteenth 
Street,  east  of  Sixth  Avenue,  and  then 
parallel  with  Sixth  Avenue  to  Love 
Lane,  the  present  Twenty-first  Street. 

The  line  of  this  road,  where  it  joined 
the  Great  Kiln  Road,  is  still  clearly 
shown  in  the  oblique  side  wall  of  the 
house  at  the  northwest  corner  of  Sev 
enth  Avenue  and  Fifteenth  Street. 
Here,  also,  it  has  a  marked  effect  on 
the  east  wall  of  St.  Joseph's  Home  for 
the  Aged.  The  first-mentioned  house, 
with  the  cutting  through  of  the  streets, 
has  been  left  one  of  those  queer  trian 
gular  buildings,  with  full  front  and  run 
ning  to  a  point  in  the  rear. 

When  the  road  reached  what  is  now 
Sixteenth  Street,  a  third  of  a  block  east 
of  Seventh  Avenue,  it  passed  through 
the  block  in  a  sweeping  curve  to  the 


Weavers' 
Row 


Graveyard 
Behind  a 
Store 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

present  corner  of  Seventeenth  Street  and 
Sixth  Avenue.  The  evidence  of  its 
passage  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  tiny 
wooden  houses  buried  in  the  centre  of 
the  block,  which  are  remnants  of  a  row 
called  Paisley  Place,  or  Weavers'  Row. 
This  row  was  built  during  the  yellow- 
fever  agitation  of  1822,  and  was  occu 
pied  by  Scotch  weavers  who  operated 
their  hand  machines  there. 

The  road  took  its  name  from  Sir 
Peter  Warren's  second  daughter,  who 
married  Charles  Fitzroy,  who  later  be 
came  the  Baron  Southampton. 

In  Twenty-first  Street,  a  little  west 
of  Sixth  Avenue,  is  the  unused  though 
not  uncared-for  graveyard  of  the  Shear- 
ith  Israel  Synagogue.  The  graveyard 
cannot  be  seen  from  the  street,  but  from 
the  rear  windows  of  a  near-by  dry-goods 
store  a  glimpse  can  be  had  of  the  ivy- 
covered  receiving-vault  and  the  time- 
grayed  tombstones. 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

When  this  "  Place  of  Rest "  was  es 
tablished  the  locality  was  all  green  fields. 
The  graveyard  had  been  forced  from 
further  down  town  by  the  cutting 
through  of  Eleventh  Street  in  1830. 
Interments  were  made  in  this  spot  until 
1852,  when  the  cemetery  was  removed 
to  Cypress  Hills,  L.  I.,  the  Common 
Council  having  in  that  year  prohibited 
burials  within  the  city  limits.  But 
though  there  were  no  burials,  the  con 
gregation  have  persistently  refused  to 
sell  this  plot,  just  as  they  have  the  ear 
lier  plots,  the  remains  of  which  are  off 
Chatham  Square  and  in  Eleventh  Street, 
near  Sixth  Avenue. 

Abingdon  Road  in  the  latter  years  Love  Lane 
of  its  existence  was  commonly  called 
Love  Lane,  and  more  than  a  century 
ago  followed  close  on  the  line  of  the 
present  Twenty-first  Street  from  what 
is  now  Broadway  to  Eighth  Avenue.  It 
was  the  northern  limit  of  a  tract  of  land 
123 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

given  by  the  city  to  Admiral  Sir  Peter 
Warren  in  recognition  of  his  services  at 
the  capture  of  Louisburg. 

From  this  road,  when  the  Warren 
estate  was  divided  among  the  daughters 
of  the  Admiral,  two  roads,  the  South 
ampton  and  the  Warren,  were  opened 
through  this  upper  part  of  the  estate. 

The  name  Love  Lane  was  given  to 
the  road  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  and  was  retained  until  it 
was  swallowed  up  in  Twenty-first  Street. 
This  last  was  ordered  opened  in  1 8 27, but 
was  not  actually  opened  until  some  years 
later.  There  is  no  record  to  show  where 
the  name  came  from.  The  generally 
accepted  idea  is  that  being  a  quiet  and 
little  traveled  spot,  it  was  looked  upon 
as  a  lane  where  happy  couples  might 
drive,  far  from  the  city,  and  amid  green 
fields  and  stately  trees  confide  the  story 
of  their  loves.  It  was  the  longest  drive 
from  the  town,  by  way  of  the  Post  Road, 
Bloomingdale  Road  and  so  across  the 
124 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

west  to  Southampton,  Great  Kiln  roads, 
through  Greenwich  Village  and  by  the 
river  road  back  to  town. 

The  road  originally  took  its  name 
from  the  oldest  daughter  of  Admiral 
Warren,  who  married  the  Earl  of  Ab- 
ingdon. 

There  are  still  traces  ot  Love  Lane 
in  Twenty-first  Street.  The  two  houses 
numbered  25  and  27  stood  on  the  road. 
The  houses  51,  53  and  55,  small  and 
odd  appearing,  are  more  closely  identi 
fied  with  the  lane.  When  built,  these 
houses  were  conspicuous  and  alone,  at 
the  junction  where  Southampton  Road 
from  Greenwich  Village  ran  into  Love 
Lane.  They  are  thought  to  have  been 
a  single  house  serving  as  a  tavern. 

Close  by,  at  the  northeast  corner  of 
Twenty-first  Street  and  Sixth  Avenue, 
the  house  with  the  gable  roof  is  one 
that  also  stood  on  the  old  road,  though 
built  at  a  later  date  than  the  three  next 
to  it. 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  road  ended  for  many  years  about 
on  the  line  with  the  present  Eighth  Ave 
nue,  where  it  ran  into  the  Fitzroy 
Road.  Some  years  previous  to  the  lay 
ing  out  of  the  streets  under  the  City 
Plan  in  1811,  Love  Lane  was  continued 
to  Hudson  River.  Before  it  reached 
the  river  it  was  crossed,  a  little  east  of 
Seventh  Avenue,  by  the  Warren  Road, 
although  there  is  no  trace  of  the  crossing 
now. 


Chelsea 
Village 


Although    Chelsea   Village  was  long 
ago  swallowed  up   by  the   city,  and  its 
boundaries  blotted  out  by  the  rectangu 
lar  lines  of  the   plan  under  which  the 
streets  were  mapped  out  in   1811,  there 
is  still  a  suggestion  of  it 
j          ,  in  the    green    lawns  and 

\YI  /Stfir'  gray  buildings  of  the  Gen 
eral  Theolo 
gical  Semi 
nary  of  the 
Protestant 


Old 

Theological    Seminary 
Chei.ed    Suare 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Episcopal  Church,  which  occupies  the 
block  between  Twentieth  and  Twenty- 
first  Streets,  Ninth  and  Tenth  Avenues. 
Chelsea  got  its  name  in  1750,  when 
Captain  Thomas  Clarke,  an  old  soldier, 
gave  the  name  to  his  country  seat,  in 
remembrance  of  the  English  home  for 
invalided  soldiers.  It  was  between  two 
and  three  miles  from  the  city,  a  stretch 
of  country  land  along  the  Hudson  River 
with  not  another  house  anywhere  near 
it.  The  house  stood,  as  streets  are  now, 
at  the  south  side  of  Twenty-third  Street, 
about  two  hundred  feet  west  of  Ninth 
Avenue,  on  a  hill  that  sloped  to  the  river. 
The  captain  had  hoped  to  die  in  his 
retreat,  but  his  home  was  burned  to  the 
ground  during  his  severe  illness,  and  he 
died  in  the  home  of  his  nearest  neigh 
bor.  Soon  after  his  death  the  house 
was  rebuilt  by  his  widow,  Mrs.  Mollie 
Clarke.  The  latter  dying  in  1802,  a 
portion  of  the  estate  with  the  house 
went  to  Bishop  Benjamin  Moore,  who 
127 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

had  married  Mrs.  Clarke's  daughter, 
Chanty.  It  passed  from  him  in  1813 
to  his  son.  Clement  C.  Moore.  The 
latter  reconstructed  the  house,  and  it 
stood  until  1850. 

Clement  C.  Moore's  estate  was  in 
cluded  within  the  present  lines  of  Eighth 
Avenue,  Nineteenth  to  Twenty-fourth 
Streets  and  Hudson  River.  These  are 
approximately  the  bounds  of  Chelsea 
Village  which  grew  up  around  the  old 
Chelsea  homestead.  It  came  to  be  a 
thriving  village,  conveniently  reached  by 
the  road  to  Greenwich  and  then  by 
Fitzroy  Road  ;  or  by  the  Bowery  Road, 
Bloomingdale,  and  then  along  Love 
Lane. 

In  1831  the  streets  were  cut  through 
and  the  village  thereafter  grew  up  on 
the  projected  lines  of  the  City  Plan. 
It  was  for  this  reason  that  Chelsea,  when 
the  city  reached  it,  was  merged  into  it 
so  perfectly  that  there  is  not  an  imper 
fect  street  line  to  tell  where  the  village 
128 


OF     OLD      NEW      YORK 

had  been  and  where  the  city  joined  it. 
There  are  houses  of  the  old  village  still 
standing ;  notably  those  still  called  the 
Chelsea  Cottages  in  Twenty-fourth 
Street  west  of  Ninth  Avenue,  and  the  row 
called  the  London  Terrace  in  Twenty-  , 

J       London 

third  Street  between    Ninth  and  Tenth  Terrace 
Avenues. 

The  block  on  which  the  General 
Theological  Seminary  stands  was  given 
to  the  institution  by  Clement  C.  Moore, 
and  was  long  called  Chelsea  Square. 
The  cornerstone  of  the  East  Building 
was  laid  in  1825,  and  of  the  West  Build 
ing,  which  still  stands,  in  1835. 

It  was  this  Clement  C.  Moore,  living 
quietly  in  the  village  that  had  grown  up 
around  him,  who  wrote  the  child's  poem 
which  will  be  remembered  longer  than 
its  writer — "  'Twas  the  Night  before 
Christmas." 


129 


Ill 


Ill 

THE  Oliver  Street  Baptist  Church  Oliver  Street 
was  built  on  the  northwest  corner  church 
of  Oliver  and  Henry   Streets  in   1795. 
It  was  rebuilt    in    1800,  and  again   in 
1819.   Later  it  was  burned,  and  finally 
restored  in  1843.     The  structure  is  now 
occupied    by    the     Mariners'    Temple, 
and  the  record  of  its  burning  is  to  be 
seen  on  a  marble  tablet  on  the  front  wall. 

Oliver  Street — that  is,  the  two  blocks 
from  Chatham  Square  to  Madison 
Street — was  called  Fayette  Street  before 
the  name  was  changed  to  Oliver  in  1825. 

James    Street    was     once    St.    James 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Street.     The  change  was  made  prior  to 
1816. 


Manners'  Church,  at  46  Catherine 
Street,  was  erected  in  1854,  on  the 
southeast  corner  of  Madison  Street. 
Prior  to  that,  and  as  far  back  as  1819, 
it  had  been  at  76  Roosevelt  Street. 

Madison  Banker  Street  having  become   a  by 

word,  because  of  the  objectionable  char 
acter  of  its  inhabitants,  the  name  was 
changed  to  Madison  Street  in  1826. 

Between  Jefferson  and  Clinton  Streets, 
and  south  of  Henry,  was  a  pond,  the 
only  bit  of  water  which,  in  early  days, 
emptied  into  the  East  River  between 
what  afterward  became  Roosevelt  Street 
and  Houston  Street.  A  wet  meadow, 
rather  than  a  distinct  stream,  ex 
tended  from  this  pond  to  the  river  as  an 
outlet.  This  became  later  the  region  of 
shipyards. 

J34 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

On  what  is  now  Cherry  Street,  be- 

'  Nathan   Hale 

tween  Clinton  and  J efferson  Streets,  was  Hanged 
was  the  house  of  Col.  Henry  Rutgers, 
the  Revolutionary  patriot,  and  his  farm 
extended  from  that  point  in  all  direc 
tions.  On  a  tree  of  this  farm  Nathan 
Hale,  the  martyr  spy  of  the  Revolution, 
was  hanged,  September  22,  1776.  On 
this  same  farm  the  Church  of  the  Sea  and 
Land,  still  standing  with  its  three-foot 
walls,  at  Market  and  Henry  Streets, 
was  built  in  1817. 


Church  of  Sea  &  Und 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

In  1828,  at  the  corner  of  Henry  and 
Scammel  Streets,  was  erected  All  Saints' 
Church  (Episcopal).  It  still  stands, 
now  hemmed  in  by  dwelling-houses. 
It  is  a  low  rock  structure.  A  bit  of 
green,  a  stunted  tree  and  some  shrubs 
still  struggle  through  the  bricks  at  the 
rear  of  the  church,  and  can  be  seen 
through  a  tall  iron  railing  from  narrow 
Scammel  Street.  In  1825  the  church 
occupied  a  chapel  on  Grand  Street  at 
the  corner  of  Columbia. 

First  The   first  house   designed   especially 

Tenement  &      .        . 

House  for  many  tenants  was  built  in  1833, 
in  Water  Street  just  east  of  Jackson,  on 
which  site  is  now  included  Corlears 
Hook  Park.  It  was  four  stories  in 
height,  and  arranged  for  one  family  on 
each  floor.  It  was  built  by  Thomas 
Price,  and  owned  by  James  P.  Allaire, 
whose  noted  engine  works  were  close  by 
in  Cherry  Street,  between  Walnut  (now 
Jackson)  and  Corlears  Street. 
136 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Where  Grand  and  Pitt  Streets  cross 
is  the  top  of  a  hill  formerly  known  as 
Mount  Pitt.  On  this  hill  the  building 
occupied  by  the  Mount  Pitt  Circus  was 
built  in  1826.  It  was  burned  in  1828. 

At  Grand,  corner  of  Ridge  Street,  is 
the  St.  Mary's  Church  (Catholic),  which 
was  built  in  1833,  a  rough  stone  struc 
ture  with  brick  front  and  back.  In  1826 
it  was  in  Sheriff,  between  Broome  and 
Delancey  Streets.  It  had  the  first 
Roman  Catholic  bell  in  the  city.  In 
1831  the  church  was  burned  by  a  burg 
lar,  and  the  new  structure  was  built 
in  Grand  Street. 

Actual  work  on  the  pier  for  the  new 
East  River  Bridge,  at  the  foot  of 
Delancey  Street,  was  begun  in  the 
spring  of  1897. 


Much  confusion  has  arisen,  and  still  Manhattan 

,         ,      .  .  r    ,  .  Island 

exists,  in  the  designation  or  the  territory 

137 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

under  the  names  of  Manhattan  Island 
and  Island  of  Manhattan.  The  two 
islands  a  hundred  years  ago  were  widely 
different  bodies.  They  are  joined  now. 

Manhattan  Island  was  the  name  given 
to  a  little  knoll  of  land  which  lay  with 
in  the  limits  of  what  is  now  Third, 
Houston  and  Lewis  Streets  and  the 
East  River.  At  high  tide  the  place  was 
a  veritable  island.  There  seems  to  be 
still  a  suggestion  of  it  in  the  low  build 
ings  which  occupy  the  ground  of  the 
former  island.  About  the  ancient 
boundary,  as  though  closing  it  in,  are 
tall  tenements  and  factory  buildings. 
On  the  grounds  of  this  old  island  the 
first  recreation  pier  was  built,  in  1897, 
at  the  foot  of  Third  Street. 

The  Island  of  Manhattan  has  always 
been  the  name  applied  to  the  land  oc 
cupied  by  the  old  City  of  New  York, 
now  the  Borough  of  Manhattan. 

In  the  heart  of  the  block  surrounded 

138 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK. 

by  Rivington,  Stanton,  Goerck  and 
Mangin  Streets,  there  is  still  to  be  seen 
the  remains  of  a  slanting-roofed 
market,  closed  in  by  the  houses 
which  have  been  built  about 
it.  It  was  setup  in  1827, 
and  named  Manhattan  Mar 
ket  after  the  nearby  island. 

Work    on    the    Hamilton  Bone 
Fish  Park  was  begun  in  1896, 


Done  All. 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

in  the  space  bounded  by  Stanton, 
Houston,  Pitt  and  Sheriff  Streets,  then 
divided  into  two  blocks  by  Willett 
Street.  This  was  a  congested,  tene 
ment-house  vicinity,  where  misery  and 
poverty  pervaded  most  of  the  dingy 
dwellings.  In  wiping  out  the  two  sol 
idly  built-up  blocks,  Bone  Alley,  well 
known  in  police  history  for  a  genera 
tion,  was  effaced.  On  the  west  side  of 
Willett  Street,  midway  of  the  block, 
Bone  Alley  had  its  start  and  extended 
sixty  feet  into  the  block — a  twenty-five- 
foot  space  between  tall  tenements,  run 
ning  plump  into  a  row  of  houses  ex 
tending  horizontal  with  it.  When  these 
houses  were  erected  they  each  had  long 
gardens,  which  were  built  upon  when 
the  land  became  too  valuable  to  be 
spared  for  flower-beds  or  breathing- 
spots.  In  time  they  became  the  homes 
of  rag-  and  bone-pickers,  and  thus  the 
alley  which  led  to  them  got  its  name, 
which  it  kept  even  after  the  rag- 
140 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

pickers  and  the  law-breakers  who  suc 
ceeded  them  had  been  driven  away  by 
the  police. 

There  was,  forty  years  ago,  a  well  of 
good,  drinkable  water  at  the  point 
where  Rivington  and  Columbia  Streets 
now  cross. 

The  little  frame  house  at  the  north-  "Mother" 

r  -n-    •  i     /— i-  Mandelbaum 

west  corner  or  Rivington  and  Clinton 
Streets  was  the  home  of  "  Mother " 
Frederica  Mandelbaum  for  many  years, 
until  she  was  driven  from  the  city  in 
1884.  This  "Queen  of  the  Crooks," 
receiver  of  stolen  goods  and  friend  of 
all  the  criminal  class,  compelled,  in  a 
sense,  the  admiration  of  the  police,  who 
for  years  battled  in  vain  to  outwit  her 
cleverness.  When  the  play,  "  The  Two 
Orphans,"  was  first  produced,  Mrs. 
Wilkins,  as  the  "  Frochard,"  copied  the 
character  of  "  Mother  "  Mandelbaum 
and  gave  a  representation  of  the  woman 
141 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

that  all  who  knew  the  original  recog 
nized.  Other  plays  were  written,  and 
also  many  stories,  having  her  as  a  cen 
tral  figure.  She  died  at  Hamilton,  On 
tario,  in  1894. 

At  the  crossing  of  Rivington  and 
Suffolk  Streets  was  the  source  of  Stuy- 
vesant's  Creek.  From  there,  as  the 
streets  exist  now,  it  crossed  Stanton 
Street,  near  Clinton ;  Houston,  at  Sheriff; 
Second,  near  Houston  ;  then  wound 
around  to  the  north  of  Manhattan  Isl 
and,  and  emptied  into  the  East  River 
at  Third  Street. 

Allen  In  Rivington  Street,  between  Ludlow 

Memorial    and  Orchard,  is  the  Allen  Street  Mem- 
Church       orial   church  (M.  E.)5  built  in   1888. 
The  original   Church,  which   was  built 
in    1810,  is  two  blocks   away,  in  Allen 
Street,  between  Delancey  and  Rivington 
Streets.     It  was   rebuilt    in    1836,  and 
when  the  new  Rivington   Street  struc- 
142 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

ture  was  erected  the  old  house  was  sold 
to  a  Jewish  congregation,  who  still  oc 
cupy  it  as  a  synagogue. 

In  Grand  Street,  between  Essex  and 
Ludlow  Streets,  the  Essex  Market  was 
built  in  1818.  The  court  next  to  it,  in 
Essex  Street,  was  built  in  1856. 


On  the  Bowery,  opposite  Rivington 
Street,  is  a  milestone  (one  of  three  that  Bowery 
yet  remain)  which  formerly  marked  the 
distance  from  the  City  Hall,  in  Wall 
Street,  on  the  Post  Road.  The  land 
to  the  east  of  the  Bowery  belonged  to 
James  De  Lancey,  who  was  Chief  Jus 
tice  of  the  Colony  in  1733,  and  in  1753 
became  Lieuten 

ant-Govern  or.   A  ^^T^X 

lane  led  from  the  &i'&'2\'  ''•{ 

>."  I  i  ]  •*  «  4      *  I 

Bowery,  close  by  ~^'***-Q  '  '•  '* 

the  milestone,  to 
his  country  house, 
which  was  at  the 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

present  northwest  corner  of  Delancey 
and  Chrystie  Streets.  It  was  in  this 
house  that  he  died  suddenly  in  1760. 
James  De  Lancey  was  the  eldest  son  of 
Etienne  (Stephen)  De  Lancey,  who 
built  the  house  which  afterwards  was 
known  as  Fraunces'  Tavern,  and  which 
still  stands  at  Broad  and  Pearl  Streets. 
He  later  built  the  homestead  at  Broad 
way  and  Cedar  Street.  Originally  the 
name  was  "  de  Lanci."  It  became  "  de 
Lancy  "  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
was  Anglicized  in  the  eighteenth  century 
to  "  De  Lancey." 

Where  Grand  Street  crosses  Mul 
berry  was,  until  1 802,  the  family  burial- 
vault  of  the  Bayard  family,  it  having 
been  the  custom  of  early  settlers  to  bury 
their  dead  near  their  homesteads.  The 
locality  was  called  Bunker  Hill. 

pts  .  St.    Patrick's    Church,  enclosed  now 

Church       by  the  high  wall  at  Mott   and    Prince 

144 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Streets,  was  completed  in  1815,  the  cor 
nerstone  having  been  laid  in  1809.  It 
was  surrounded  by  meadows  and  great 
primitive  trees.  This  region  was  so 
wild  that  in  1820  a  fox  was  killed  in 
the  churchyard.  In  1866  the  interior 
of  the  church  was  destroyed  by  fire. 
It  was  at  once  reconstructed  in  its  pres 
ent  form.  Amongst  others  buried  in 
the  vaults  are  "Boss "  John  Kelly, 
Vicar-General  Starr  and  Bishop  Con 
nelly,  first  resident  bishop  of  New  York. 

At  Prince  and  Marion  Streets,  north 
west  corner,  the  house  in  which  President 
James  Monroe  lived  while  in  the  city 
still  stands. 

The  St.  Nicholas  Hotel  was  at  Broad-  An 

i      C-       •  o  ,  ,         Unsolved 

way    and    bpnng    btreet,    and    on    the  crime 
ground   floor    John    Anderson    kept   a 
tobacco  store,  to  which  the  attention  of 
the  entire  country  was  directed  in  July, 
1842,  because  of  the  murder  of  Mary 

'45 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Rogers.  This  tragedy  gave  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  material  for  his  story  "  The  Mys 
tery  of  Marie  Roger.,"  into  which  he 
introduced  every  detail  of  the  actual 
happening.  Mary  Rogers  was  a  sales 
woman  in  the  tobacco  store,  and  being 
young  and  pretty  she  attracted  consid 
erable  attention.  She  disappeared  one 
July  day,  and,  soon  after,  her  body  was 
found  drowned  near  the  Sibyl's  Cave  at 
Hoboken.  The  deepest  mystery  sur 
rounded  her  evident  murder,  and  much 
interest  was  taken  in  attempts  at  a  solu 
tion,  but  it  remained  an  unsolved 
crime. 

On  the  east  side  of  Broadway,  between 
Prince  and  Houston  Streets,  on  July  4, 
1828,  William  Niblo  opened  his  Garden, 
Hotel  and  Theatre,  to  be  known  for 
many  years  thereafter  as  Niblo's  Garden. 
Prior  to  that,  he  had  kept  the  Bank 
Coffee  House,  at  William  and  Pine 
Streets. 

146 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

The  Metropolitan  Hotel  was  built  in 
Niblo's  Garden,  on  the  corner  that  is 
now  Broadway  and  Prince  Street,  in 
1852,  at  a  cost  of  a  million  dollars. 
The  theatre  in  the  hotel  building  was 
called  Niblo's  Garden.  The  building 
was  demolished  in  1894,  and  a  business 
block  was  put  up  on  the  site. 

Across  the  street  from  Niblo's,  on 
Broadway,  in  a  modest  brick  house, 
lived,  at  one  time,  James  Fenimore 
Cooper,  the  novelist. 

At  No.  624  Broadway,  between 
Houston  and  Bleecker  Streets, was  Laura 
Keene's  theatre.  On  March  i,  1858, 
Polly  Marshall  made  her  first  appear 
ance  on  any  stage  at  that  theatre.  Later 
it  became  the  Olympic  Theatre. 

At  Broadway  and  Bleecker  Streets,  a 
well  was  drilled,  in  1832,  which  was  four 
hundred  and  forty-eight  feet  deep,  and 
147 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

which  yielded  forty-four  thousand  gal 
lons  of  water  a  day. 

Tripler  Tripler  Hall  was  at  No.  677  Broad 

way,  near  Bond  Street.  Adelina  Patti 
appeared  there  on  September  22,  1852, 
when  ten  years  old,  giving  evidence  of 
her  future  greatness.  She  sang  there 
for  some  time,  usually  accompanied  by 
the  boy  violinist,  Paul  Julien. 

Tripler  Hall  had  been  renamed  the 
Metropolitan  Hall,  when  it  was  de 
stroyed  by  fire  in  1 854.  Lafarge  House, 
which  stood  next  it,  was  also  burned. 
The  house  was  rebuilt  on  the  site,  and 
opened  in  September,  1854,  under  the 
name  of  the  New  York  Theatre  and 
Metropolitan  Opera  House. 

Rachel  the  great  was  first  seen  in 
America  at  this  house,  September  3, 
1855.  Later  the  house  became  the 
Winter  Garden. 

The  first  marble-fronted    houses    in 

148 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

the  city  were  built  on  Broadway,  oppo-  First 

.  «/  Marble- 

Site   Bond  Street,  in    1825.      I  hey  were   Fronted 

called  the  Marble  Houses,  and  attracted  Houses 
much  attention.     Being  far  out  of  the 
city,  excursions  were  made  to  view  them. 
Afterwards   they   became  the  Tremont 
House,  and  are  still  in  use  as  a  hotel. 

A  pipe  for  a  well  was  sunk  in  Broad 
way,  opposite  Bond  Street,  in  April, 
1827,  it  being  thought  that  enough 
water  for  the  supply  of  the  immediate 
neighborhood  could  be  obtained  there 
from.  The  water  was  not  found,  how 
ever. 

No.  3 1  Bond  Street  was  the  scene  of  Burdell 
a  celebrated  murder.  The  house  is 
torn  down  now,  but  it  was  identical  with 
the  one  which  now  stands  at  No.  29. 
On  January  3,  1857,  Dr.  Harvey  Bur- 
dell,  a  dentist,  was  literally  butchered 
there,  being  stabbed  fifteen  times.  A 
portion  of  the  house  had  been  occupied 
149 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

by  a  widow  named  Cunningham,  and 
her  two  daughters.  After  the  murder, 
Mrs.  Cunningham  claimed  a  widow's 
share  of  the  Doctor's  estate,  on  the 
ground  that  she  had  been  married  to 
him  some  months  before.  This  claim 
started  an  investigation,  which  resulted 
in  Mrs.  Cunningham's  being  suspected 
of  the  crime,  arrested,  tried  and  acquitted. 
Soon  after  her  acquittal,  she  attempted 
to  secure  control  of  the  entire  Burdell 
estate,  by  claiming  that  she  had  given 
birth  to  an  heir  to  the  property.  The 
scheme  failed,  for  the  physician  through 
whom  she  obtained  a  new-born  child 
from  Bellevue  Hospital,  disclosed  the 
plot  to  District  Attorney  A.  Oakey 
Hall.  The  woman  and  her  daughters 
left  the  city  suddenly,  and  were  not 
heard  of  again.  The  mystery  of  the 
murder  was  never  solved. 

The   part  of  Houston  Street  east  of 
the  Bowery    was,  prior   to  November, 

150 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

1833,  called  North  Street.  At  the  time 
the  change  in  names  was  made  the  street 
was  raised.  Between  Broadway  and  the 
Bowery  had  been  a  wet  tract  of  land 
many  feet  below  the  grade.  In  1844 
the  street  was  extended  from  Lewis 
Street  to  the  East  River. 

The  Bleecker  Street  Bank,  which 
was  just  east  of  Broadway,  on  the  north 
side  of  Bleecker  Street,  was  moved  in 
October,  1897,  to  Twenty-first  Street 
and  Fourth  Avenue,  and  called  The 
Bank  for  Savings.  It  had  originally 
been  in  the  New  York  Institute  Build 
ing  in  City  Hall  Park. 

In  the  heart  of  the  block  inclosed  by  Marble 
the  Bowery,  Second  Avenue,  Second 
and  Third  Streets,  is  a  hidden  grave 
yard.  It  is  the  New  York  Marble 
Cemetery,  and  so  completely  has  it 
been  forgotten  that  its  name  no  longer 
appears  in  the  City  Directory.  On  four 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

sides  it  is  hemmed  about  by  tenements 
and  business  buildings,  so  that  one 
could  walk  past  it  for  a  lifetime  without 
knowing  that  it  was  there.  On  the 
Second  Avenue  side,  the  entrance  is 
formed  by  a  narrow  passage  between 
houses,  which  is  closed  by  an  iron  gate 
way.  But  the  gate  is  always  locked, 
and  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  passage 


Entrance  to 
Marble  Cemetery 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

is  another  gate  of  wood  set  in  a  brick 
wall,  so  high  that  nothing  but  the  tops 
of  trees  can  be  seen  beyond  it.  From 
the  upper  rear  windows  of  the  neigh 
boring  tenements  a  view  of  the  place 
can  be  had.  It  is  a  wild  spot,  four 
hundred  feet  by  one  hundred,  covered 
by  a  tangled  growth  of  bushes  and 
weeds,  crossed  by  neglected  paths,  and 
enclosed  by  a  wall  seventeen  feet  high 
There  is  no  sign  of  a  tombstone.  In 
the  southwest  corner  is  a  deadhouse  of 
rough  hewn  stone.  On  the  south  wall 
the  names  of  vault  owners  are  chiseled. 
Among  these  were  some  of  the  best 
known  New  Yorkers  fifty  years  ago. 
The  records  of  the  city  show  that  this 
land  was  owned  by  Henry  Eckford  and 
Marion,  his  wife.  They  deeded  it  to 
Anthony  Dey  and  George  W.  Strong 
when  the  cemetery  corporation  was  or 
ganized,  July  30,  1830.  There  were 
one  hundred  and  fifty-six  vaults,  and 
fifteen  hundred  persons  were  buried 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

there.  This  cemetery  is  forgotten 
almost  as  completely  as  its  own  dead, 
and  its  memories  do  not  molest  the 
dwellers  in  the  surrounding  tenements 
who  overlook  it  from  their  rear  win 
dows,  and  use  it  as  a  sort  of  dumping- 
ground  for  all  useless  things  that  can 
readily  be  thrown  into  it. 

The  Second  There  is  another  Marble  Cemetery 
Cemetery  which  historians  sometimes  confuse  with 
this  hidden  graveyard,  namely,  one  on 
Second  Street,  between  First  and  Sec 
ond  Avenues.  Some  of  the  larger 
merchants  of  the  city  bought  the 
ground  in  1832,  and  created  the  New 
York  City  Marble  Cemetery.  Among 
the  original  owners  was  Robert  Lenox. 
When  he  died,  in  1839,  n*s  body  was 
placed  in  a  vault  of  the  First  Presbyte 
rian  Church  at  1 6  Wall  Street.  When 
that  church  was  removed  to  Fifth 
Avenue  and  Twelfth  Street  the  remains 
of  Lenox  with  others  were  removed  to 

'54 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

this  Marble  Cemetery.  The  body  of 
President  James  Monroe  was  first  in 
terred  here,  but  was  removed  in  1859 
to  Virginia.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet, 
the  famous  jurist,  is  also  buried  here. 
One  of  the  most  conspicuous  monu 
ments  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  the 
shaft  at  the  right  of  the  church,  was 
erected  to  the  memory  of  Emmet.  A 
large  column  on  the  other  side  of  the 
church  preserves  the  memory  of  another 
man  whose  body  does  not  lie  in  the 
churchyard,  for  William  James  Mac- 
neven  was  interred  in  the  burying- 
ground  of  the  Riker  family  at  Bowery 
Bay,  L.  I. 

In  Second  Street,  between  Avenue 
A  and  First  Avenue,  stood  a  Metho 
dist  church,  and  beside  it  a  grave 
yard,  until  1 840 ;  when  the  building 
was  turned  into  a  public  school.  There 
were  fifteen  hundred  bodies  in  the 
yard,  but  they  were  not  removed  to 
155 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Evergreen  Cemetery  until  1860.  Only 
fifteen  bodies  were  claimed  by  relatives. 
One  man  who  applied  for  his  father's 
body  refused  that  offered  him,  claiming 
that  the  skull  was  too  small,  and  that 
some  mistake  had  been  made  in  disin- 
terment. 

Second  Street  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  between  Avenues  C  and  D, 
was  built  in  1832,  the  congregation 
having  previously  worshipped  in  private 
houses  in  the  vicinity.  At  one  time 
this  was  the  most  prominent  and 
wealthiest  church  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  city. 

Bouwerie  The  Bouwerie  Village  was  another  of 
the  little  settlements- — once  a  busy  spot, 
but  now  so  effaced  that  every  outline  of 
its  existence  is  blotted  out.  It  centred 
about  the  site  of  the  present  St.  Mark's 
Church,  Second  Avenue  and  Tenth 
Street.  In  1651,  when  Peter  Stuyve- 
156 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

sant,  the  last  of  the  Dutch  Governors, 
had  ruled  four  years,  he  purchased  the 
Great  Bouwerie,  a  tract  of  land  extend 
ing  two  miles  along  the  river  north  of' 
what  is  now  Grand  Street,  taking  in  a 
section  of  the  present  Bowery  and  Third 
Avenue.  As  there  was,  from  time  to 
time,  trouble  with  the  Indians,  the 
Governor  ordered  the  dwellers  on  his 
bouwerie,  as  well  as  those  on  adjoining 
bouweries,  to  form  a  village  and  gather 
there  for  mutual  protection  at  the  first 
sign  of  an  outbreak.  Very  soon  the 
settlement  included  a  blacksmith's  shop, 
a  tavern  and  a  dozen  houses.  In  this 
way  the  Bouwerie  Village  was  started. 
Peter  Stuyvesant  in  time  built  a  chapel, 
and  in  it  Hermanus  Van  Hoboken,  the 
schoolmaster,  after  whom  the  city  of 
Hoboken  is  named,  preached.  Years 
after  the  founding  of  the  village,  when 
New  Amsterdam  had  become  New 
York,  and  when  the  old  Governor  had 
returned  from  Holland,  where  he  had, 
157 


Grave  of 

Peter 

Stuyvesant 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

before  the  States-General,  fought  for 
vindication  in  so  readily  giving  up  the 
province  to  the  English,  Stuyvesant 
returned  to  end  his  days  in  the  Bouwerie 
Village.  He  died  there  at  the  age  of 
eighty,  and  was  buried  in  the  graveyard 
of  the  Bouwerie  Church.  St.  Mark's 
Church,  at  Tenth  Street  and  Second 
Avenue,  stands  on  the  site  of  the  old 
church,  and  a  memorial  stone  to  Peter 
Stuyvesant  is  still  to  be  seen  under  the 
porch.  It  reads  : 


IN  THIS  VAULT  LIES  BURIED 

PETRUS  STUYVESANT, 

LATE  CAPTAIN-GENERAL  AND  GOVERNOR  IN    CHIEF 
OF  AMSTERDAM  IN  NEW  NETHERLAND 

NOW  CALLED  NEW  YORK 

AND  THE  DUTCH  WEST  INDIES,  DIED  IN  A.  D.   167^ 
AGED   80  YEARS. 


When  Judith,  the  widow  of  Peter 
Stuyvesant,  died,  in  1692,  she  left  the 
church  in  which  the  old  Governor  had 
worshipped  to  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Church.  A  condition  was  that  the 
158 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Stuyvesant  vault  should  be  forever  pro 
tected.  By  1793  the  church  had  fallen 
into  decay.  Then  another  Peter  Stuy 
vesant,  great-grandson  of  the  Dutch 
Governor,  who  was  a  vestryman  of 
Trinity  Church,  gave  the  site  aftd  sur 
rounding  lots,  together  with  $2,000, 
and  the  Trinity  Corporation  added 
$12,500,  and  erected  the  present  St. 
Mark's  Church.  The  cornerstone 
was  laid  in  1795  and  the  building  com 
pleted  in  1799.  It  had  no  steeple  until 
1829,  when  that  portion  was  added. 
In  1858  the  porch  was  added.  In 
the  churchyard  were  buried  the  remains 
of  Mayor  Philip  Hone  and  of  Governor 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins.  It  was  here 
that  the  body  of  Alexander  T.  Stewart 
rested  until  stolen.  Close  by  the  church 
was  the  mansion  of  Governor  Stuyve 
sant.  It  was  an  imposing  structure  for 
those  days,  built  of  tiny  bricks  brought 
from  Holland.  A  fire  destroyed  the 
house  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 

'59 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

When  Peter  Stuyvesant  returned 
from  Holland  he  brought  with  him  a 
pear  tree,  which  he  planted  in  a  garden 
near  his  Bouwerie  Village  house.  This 
tree  flourished  for  more  than  two  hun 
dred  years.  At  Thirteenth  Street  and 
Third  Avenue,  on  the  house  at  the 
northeast  corner,  is  a  tablet  inscribed  : 


ON  THIS  CORNER  GREW 
PETRUS  STUYVESANT'S  PEAR  TREE 


RECALLED  TO  HOLLAND  IN    1664, 

ON  HIS  RETURN 

HE  BROUGHT  THE  PEAR  TREE 

AND  PLANTED  IT 

AS  HIS  MEMORIAL, 

"  BY  WHICH,"  SAID  HE,  "  MY  NAME 

MAY  BE  REMEMBERED." 

THE  PEAR  TREE  FLOURISHED 

AND  BORE  FRUIT  FOR  OVER 

TWO  HUNDRED  YEARS. 

THIS  TABLET  IS  PLACED  HERE  BY 
THE  HOLLAND  SOCIETY 

OF  NEW  YORK 
SEPTEMBER,    1890. 


1 60 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

In  i?8c  half  a  dozen  persons  in  the  First 

.    J  .  Sunday 

Bouwene  Village,  then  scattering  to  the  School 
east  from  the  site  of  Cooper  Union, 
met  at  the  "Two  Mile  Stone " —so 
called  from  being  two  miles  from  Fed 
eral  Hall — in  the  upper  room  of  John 
Coutant's  house,  on  the  site  where 
Cooper  Institute  stands  now.  The 
room  was  used  as  a  shoe  store  during 
the  week.  Here,  on  Sundays,  ministers 
from  the  John  Street  Church  instructed 
converts.  Peter  Cooper,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  church,  a  few  years  later 
conceived  the  idea  of  connecting  the 
school  with  the  church.  The  organi 
zation  was  perfected,  and  he  was  chosen 
Superintendent  of  this,  the  first  Sunday 
School  of  New  York. 

The  quarters  becoming  cramped,  in 
1795  tne  congregation  moved  to  a  two- 
story  building  a  block  away,  on  Nicho 
las  William  Street.  This  street,  long 
since  blotted  out,  extended  from  what 
is  now  Fourth  Avenue  and  Seventh 

16: 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Street,  across  the  Cooper  Institute  site 
and  part  of  the  adjoining  block,  to 
Eighth  (now  St.  Mark's  Place),  midway 
of  the  block  between  Third  and  Second 
Avenues.  The  street  was  named  after 
Nicholas  William  Stuyvesant.  When 
the  old  John  Street  Church  was  taken 
down,  in  1817,  the  timber  from  it  was 
used  to  erect  a  church  next  to  the  Sun 
day  School  (called  the  Academy).  This 
church  was  called  the  Bowery  Village 
village"  Church.  In  1830,  the  Bowery  Village 
Church  Church  having  been  wiped  out  by  the  ad 
vancing  streets  of  the  City  Plan,  Nicho 
las  William  Street  went  with  it,  and  a 
church  was  then  established  a  short  dis 
tance  to  the  east,on  the  lineof  what  is  now 
Seventh  Street,  north  side,  and  this  be 
came  the  Seventh  Street  Church.  In 
1837  persons  living  near  by  who  ob 
jected  to  the  church  revivals  presented 
the  trustees  with  two  lots,  nearer  Third 
Avenue.  There  a  new  church  was  built, 
which  still  stands. 

i6a 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Vauxhall  Garden  occupied  (according  Second 

.  .  r     .  ^  3.   .\.-.l    . 

to  the  present  designation  of  the  streets)  Garden 
the  space  south  of  Astor  Place,  between 
Fourth  Avenue  and  Broadway,  to  the 
line  of  Fifth  Street.  Fourth  Avenue 
was  then  Bowery  Road,  and  the  main 
entrance  to  the  Garden  was  on  that  side, 
opposite  the  present  Sixth  Street.  At 
Broadway  the  Garden  narrowed  down 
to  a  V  shape.  On  this  ground,  for  many 
years,  John  Sperry,  a  Swiss,  cultivated 
fruits  and  flowers,  and  when  he  had 
grown  old  he  sold  his  estate,  in  1799, 
to  John  Jacob  Astor.  The  latter  leased 
::  to  a  Frenchman  named  Delacroix, 
who  had  previously  conducted  the  Vaux 
hall  Garden  on  the  Bayard  Estate,  close 
by  the  present  Warren  and  Greenwich 
Streets.  During  the  next  eight  years 
Delacroix  transformed  his  newly-ac 
quired  possession  into  a  pleasure  garden, 
by  erecting  a  small  theatre  and  sum 
mer-house,  and  by  setting  out  tables 
and  seats  under  the  trees  on  the 
163 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

grounds,  and  booths  with  benches  around 
the  inside  close  up  to  the  high  board  fence 
that  enclosed  the  Garden.  He  called 
the  place  Vauxhall,  thereby  causing 
some  confusion  to  historians,  who  often 
confound  this  Garden  with  the  earlier 
one  of  the  same  name.  This  last 
Vauxhall  was  situated  a  mile  out  of  town 
on  the  Bowery  Road.  It  was  an  attrac 
tive  retreat,  and  the  tableaux  were  so 
fine,  the  ballets  so  ingenius  and  the  sing 
ing  of  such  excellence,  that  the  resort 
became  immensely  popular,  and  re 
mained  so  continuously  until  the  Garden 
was  swept  out  of  existence  in  1855. 
Admission  to  the  grounds  was  free, 
and  to  the  theatre  two  shillings.  In  its 
last  years  it  was  a  favorite  place  for  the 
holding  of  large  public  meetings. 

Cooper  Cooper  Union,  at  the  upper  end  of 

Union  .       _.  t      ..      .  ^ 

the  Bowery,  was  built  in   1854.     reter 

Cooper,   merchant    and    philanthropist, 

made  the  object  of  his  life  the  establish- 

164 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

ment  of  an  institution  designed  espe 
cially  to  give  the  working  classes  oppor 
tunity  for  self-education  better  than  the 
existing  institutions  afforded.  His  store 
was  on  the  site  of  the  present  building, 
which  he  founded.  By  a  deed  executed 
in  1859  the  institution,  with  its  incomes, 
he  devoted  to  the  instruction  and  im 
provement  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  forever.  The  institution  has 
been  taxed  to  its  full  capacity  since  its 
inception.  From  time  to  time  it  has 
been  enriched  by  gifts  from  Mr.  Cooper's 
heirs  and  friends.  The  statue  of  Peter 
Cooper,  in  the  little  park  in  front  of  the 
building,  was  unveiled  May  28th,  1897. 
It  is  the  work  of  Augustus  St.  Gaudens, 
once  a  pupil  in  the  Institute. 

On  a  part  of  the  site  of  Cooper  Union, 
at  the  east  side  of  what  was  then  the 
Bowery,  and  what  is  now  Fourth  Ave 
nue,  stood  a  house  which  was  said 
to  have  been  haunted.  It  was  demol- 
165 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

ished  to  make  way  for  Cooper  Union. 
No  permanent  tenant,  it  is  said,  had  oc 
cupied  it  for  sixty  years.  It  was  a  peaked- 
roofed  brick  structure,  two  stories  high. 

The  house  of  Peter  Cooper  was  on 
the  site  of  the  present  Bible  House,  at 
Eighth  Street  and  Third  Avenue.  He 
removed  in  1820  to  Twenty-eighth 
Street  and  Fourth  Avenue,  and  his 
dwelling  may  still  be  seen  there. 

Astor  Astor  Place  is  part  of  old  Greenwich 

Place 

Lane,  which  led  from  the  Bowery  Lane 
past  the  pauper  cemetery,  where  Wash 
ington  Square  is  now,  over  the  sand 
hills  where  University  Place  now  is, 
and  took  the  line  of  the  present  Green 
wich  Avenue.  This  was  also  called 
Monument  Lane,  because  of  a  monu 
ment  to  the  memory  of  General  Wolfe 
erected  on  the  spot  where  the  road 
ended,  at  the  junction  of  Eighth  Avenue 
and  Fifteenth  Street. 

166 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Astor  Place,  as  far  as  Fifth  Avenue, 
was  called  Art  Street  when  it  was  changed 
from  a  road  to  a  street.  The  continu 
ation  of  Astor  Place  to  the  east,  now 
Stuyvesant  Street,  was  originally  Stuy- 
vesant  Road,  and  extended  to  the  river 
at  about  Fifteenth  Street.  It  was  also 
called  Art  when  it  became  a  street. 
On  the  south  side  of  this  thoroughfare, 
just  west  of  Fourth  Avenue,  Charlotte 
Temple  lived  in  a  small  stone  house. 

At  the  head  of  Lafayette  Place, 
fronting  on  Astor  Place,  is  a  building 
used  at  this  time  as  a  German  Theatre. 
It  was  built  for  Dr.  Schroeder,  once  the 
favorite  preacher  of  the  city,  of  whom 
it  was  said  that  if  anyone  desired  to  know 
where  Schroeder  preached,  he  had  only 
to  follow  the  crowds  on  Sunday.  But 
he  became  dissatisfied  and  left  Trinity 
for  a  church  of  his  own.  He  very  soon 
gave  up  this  church,  and  for  a  time  the 
building  was  occupied  by  St.  Ann's 
167 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Roman  Catholic  congregation.  After 
ward  it  became  a  theatre  and  failed 
to  succeed. 

The  ground  at  the  junction  of  Astor 
Place  and  Eighth  Street  was  made 
a  public  square  in  1836.  In  the  midst 
of  it  may  now  be  seen  a  statue  of 
Samuel  S.  Cox. 

Scene  of          Astor  Place  Opera  House,  at  the  iunc- 

Forrest- 

Macready  tion  of  Eighth  Street  and  Astor  Place, 
where  Clinton  Hall  stands  now,  was 
built  in  1847.  ^  was  a  handsome 
theatre  for  those  days,  and  contained 
eighteen  hundred  seats.  It  was  opened 
on  November  22nd  with  "  Ernani." 
On  May  yth,  1849,  at  tm's  nouse  oc 
curred  the  first  of  the  Macready  riots. 
The  bitter  jealousy  existing  between 
William  Charles  Macready,  the  English 
actor,  and  Edwin  Forrest,  which  had 
assumed  the  proportions  of  an  inter 
national  quarrel,  so  far  as  the  two  actors 

168 


OF     OLD      NEW      YORK. 

and  their  friends  were  concerned,  was 
the  cause.  The  admirers  of  Forrest 
sought,  on  this  night,  to  prevent  the 
performance  of  "  Macbeth,"  and  a  riot 
ensued  in  which  no  particular  damage 
was  done.  On  May  loth,  in  response 
to  a  petition  signed  by  many  prominent 
citizens,  Macready  again  sought  to  play 
"  Macbeth."  An  effort  was  made 
to  keep  all  Forrest  sympathizers  from 
the  house.  Many,  however,  gained  ad 
mission,  and  the  performance  was  again 
frustrated.  The  ringleaders  were  ar 
rested.  A  great  crowd  blocked  Astor 
Place,  and  an  assault  upon  the  theatre 
was  attempted.  Macready  escaped  by 
a  rear  door.  The  Seventh  Regiment 
and  a  troop  of  cavalry  cleared  Eighth 
Street  and  reached  Astor  Place.  The 
mob  resisted.  The  Riot  Act  was  read. 
That  producing  no  effect,  and  the  assault 
upon  the  building  and  the  soldiers  de 
fending  it  becoming  more  violent  each 
moment,  the  mob  was  fired  upon. 
169 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Three  volleys  were  fired.  Thirty-four 
persons  were  killed  and  some  hundred 
injured.  Over  one  hundred  soldiers 
and  many  policemen  were  also  hurt. 

On  August  3Oth,  1852,  the  name  of 
the  house  was  changed  to  the  New 
York  Theatre,  under  the  direction  of 
Charles  R.  Thorne.  In  a  month's 
time  he  gave  up  the  venture  and  Frank 
Chanfrau  took  it  up.  He  also  aban 
doned  it  after  a  few  weeks. 
Clinton  jn  1 8  CA  the  Opera  House  was  re- 

Hal1  -11  1  AT 

constructed  and  occupied  by  the  Mer 
cantile  Library.  It  was  given  the  name 
of  Clinton  Hall,  which  had  been  the 
name  of  the  library's  first  home  in  Beek- 
man  Street.  This  building  in  time  gave 
way  to  the  present  Clinton  Hall  on 
the  same  site. 

Lafayette          Lafayette  Place  was  opened   through 
the  Vauxhall  Garden  in  1826. 

The    Astor    Library,     in    Lafayette 
Place,    was    completed     in     1853,    and 
170 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

was  opened  in  1854.  The  site  cost 
$25,000. 

The  Middle  Dutch  Reformed  Church 
was  built  in  Lafayette  Place  in  1839,  at 
the  northwest  corner  of  Fourth  Street  af 
ter  its  removal  from  Nassau  and  Cedar 
Streets.  A  new  church  was  built  at 
Seventh  Street  and  Second  Avenue  in 
1844.  In  the  Lafayette  Place  building 
was  a  bell  which  had  been  cast  in  Hol 
land  in  1731,  and  which  had  first  been 
used  when  the  church  was  in  Nassau 
Street.  It  was  the  gift  of  Abraham  de 
Peyster,  and  now  hangs  in  the  Reformed 
Church  at  Fifth  Avenue  and  Forty- 
eighth  Street. 

Next  to  this  church,  for  many  years, 
lived  Madam  Canda,  who  kept  the 
most  fashionable  school  for  ladies  of  a 
generation  ago.  Her  beautiful  daugh 
ter  was  dashed  from  a  carriage,  and  killed 
on  her  eighteenth  birthday — the  age  at 
which  she  was  to  make  her  debut  into  so 
ciety.  The  entire  city  mourned  her  loss. 
171 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

La  Grange  Soon  after  Lafayette  Place  was 
opened,  La  Grange  Terrace  was  built. 
It  was  named  after  General  Lafayette's 
home  in  France.  The  row  is  still 
prominent  on  the  west  side  of  the  thor 
oughfare,  and  is  .known  as  Colonnade 
Row.  A  riot  occurred  at  the  time  it 
was  built,  the  masons  of  the  city  being 
aroused  because  the  stone  used  in  the 
structure  was  cut  by  the  prisoners  in 
Sing  Sing  prison. 

John  Jacob  Astor  lived  on  this  street. 
He  died  March  29th,  1848,  and  was 
buried  from  the  home  of  his  son,  Wil 
liam  B.  Astor,  just  south  of  the  library 
building. 

Sailors'  A  \'mQ    drawn    through  Astor    Place 

Harbor  and  continued  to  the  Washington  Arch 
in  Washington  Square,  through  Fifth 
Avenue  to  the  neighborhood  of  Tenth 
Street,  with  Fourth  Avenue  as  an 
eastern  boundary,  would  roughly  en 
close  what  used  to  be  the  Eliot  estate 
172 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury.  It  was  a  farm  of  about  twenty- 
one  acres  in  1790,  when  it  was  pur 
chased  for  five  thousand  pounds  from 
"  Baron  "  Poelnitz,  by  Captain  Robert 
Richard  Randall,  who  had  been  a  ship 
master  and  a  merchant.  Randall  dy 
ing  in  1 80 1,  bequeathed  the  farm  for 
the  founding  of  an  asylum  for  superan 
nuated  sailors,  together  with  the  man 
sion  house  in  which  he  had  lived.  The 
house  stood,  approximately,  at  the  pres 
ent  northwest  corner  of  Ninth  Street 
and  Broadway.  It  was  the  intention  of 
Captain  Randall  that  the  Sailors'  Snug 
Harbor  should  be  built  on  the  property, 
and  the  farming  land  used  to  raise  all 
vegetables,  fruit  and  grain  necessary  for 
the  inmates.  There  were  long  years  of 
litigation,  however,  for  relatives  con 
tested  the  will.  When  the  case  was 
settled  in  1831,  the  trustees  had  decided 
to  lease  the  land,  and  to  purchase  the 
Staten  Island  property  where  the  Asy- 
i73 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

lum  is  now  located.  The  estate,  at  the 
time  of  Captain  Randall's  death,  yielded 
an  annual  income  of  $4,000.  At  pres 
ent  the  income  is  about  $400,000  a 
year.  It  is  conceded  that  the  property 
would  have  increased  more  rapidly  in 
value  had  it  been  sold  outright,  instead 
of  becoming  leasehold  property  in  per 
petuity. 

Many  efforts  have  been  made  to  cut 
through  Eleventh  Street  from  Fourth 
Avenue  to  Broadway.  The  first  was  in 
1830,  when  the  street  was  open  on  the 
lines  of  the  City  Plan.  Hendrick  Bre- 
voort,  whose  farm  adjoined  the  Sailors' 
Snug  Harbor  property,  had  a  home 
stead  directly  in  the  line  of  the  proposed 
street,  between  Fourth  Avenue  and 
Broadway.  He  resisted  the  attempted 
encroachment  on  his  home  so  success 
fully  that  the  street  was  not  opened 
through  that  block.  He  was  again  sim 
ilarly  successful  in  1 849,  when  an  ordi- 
174 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

nance  was  passed  for  the  removal  of  his 
house  and  the  opening  of  the  street. 

Grace  Church,  at   Tenth   Street  and  Guraceu 

Church 

Broadway,  was  completed  in  1846.  Pre 
vious  to  that  date  it  had  been  on  the 
southwest  corner  of  Broadway  and  Rec 
tor  Street,  opposite  Trinity  Church. 

There  is  a  reason  for  the  sudden  bend 
in  Broadway  at  Tenth  Street,  close 
by  Grace  Church.  The  Bowery  Lane, 
which  is  now  Fourth  Avenue,  curved 
in  passing  through  what  is  now  Union 
Square  until,  at  the  line  of  the  present 
Seventeenth  Street  it  turned  and  took  a 
direct  course  north  and  was  from  there 
on  called  the  Bloomingdale  Road. 
This  road  to  Bloomingdale  was  opened 
long  before  Broadway,  and  it  was  in 
order  to  let  the  latter  connect  as  directly 
as  possible  with  the  straight  road  north 
that  the  direction  of  Broadway  was 
changed  about  1806  by  the  Tenth 

175 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Street  bend  and  a  junction  effected  with 
the  other  road  at  the  Seventeenth  Street 
line. 

At  Thirteenth  Street  and  Fourth 
Avenue  there  was  constructed  in  1834 
a  tank  which  was  intended  to  furnish 
water  for  extinguishing  fires.  It  had  a 
capacity  of  230,000  gallons,  and  was 
one  hundred  feet  above  tide  water. 
Water  was  forced  into  it  by  a  1 2-horse 
power  engine  from  a  well  and  conduct 
ing  galleries  at  the  present  Tenth 
Street  and  Sixth  Avenue,  on  the  site  of 
the  Jefferson  Market  Prison. 

Wallaces  In  1861  James  W.  Wallack  moved 
from  Wallack's  Lyceum  at  Broome 
Street,  and  occupied  the  new  Wallack's, 
now  the  Star  Theatre,  at  Thirteenth 
Street  and  Broadway.  His  last  appear 
ance  was  when  he  made  a  little  speech 
at  the  close  of  the  season  of  1862.  He 
died  in  1864. 

176 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

Union  Square  was  provided  for  in  Union 
the  City  Plan,  under  the  name  of  Union 
Place.  The  Commissioners  decided 
that  the  Place  was  necessary,  as  an 
opening  for  fresh  air  would  be  needed 
when  the  city  should  be  built  up. 
Furthermore,  the  union  of  so  many 
roads  intersecting  at  that  point  required 
space  for  convenience  ;  and  if  the  roads 
were  continued  without  interruption  the 
land  would  be  divided  into  such  small 
portions  as  to  be  valueless  for  building 
purposes. 

The  fountain  in  the  square  was  oper 
ated  for  the  first  time  in  1842,  on  the 
occasion  of  the  great  Croton  Water 
celebration. 

The  bronze  equestrian  statue  of 
Washington  was  erected  in  the  square 
close  by  where  the  citizens  had  received 
the  Commander  of  the  Army  when  he 
entered  the  city  on  Evacuation  Day, 
November  25,  1783.  The  statue  is 
the  work  of  Henry  K.  Brown.  The 
177 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

dedication  occurred  on  July  4,  1 
and  was  an  imposing  ceremony.  Rev. 
George  W.  Bethune  delivered  an  ora 
tion,  and  there  was  a  military  parade. 

Academy         The   Academy   of  Music,   at   Four- 

of  Music  IT-  ™ 

teenth  Street  and  Irving  rlace,  was 
built  in  1854  by  a  number  of  citi 
zens  who  desired  a  permanent  home  for 
opera.  On  October  2nd  of  that  year, 
Hackett  took  his  company,  headed  by 
Grisi  and  Matio,  there,  the  weather  be 
ing  too  cold  to  continue  the  season  at 
Castle  Garden.  The  building  was 
burned  in  1866  and  rebuilt  in  1868. 

In  Third  Avenue,  between  Sixteenth 
and  Seventeenth  Streets,  is  an  old  mile 
stone  which  marked  the  third  mile  from 
Federal  Hall  on  the  Post  Road. 

The     Friends'    Meeting    House,    at 
East   Sixteenth   Street   and   Rutherford 
Place,  has  existed  since  1860.     In  1775 
178 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

it  was  in  Pearl  Street,  near  Franklin 
Square.  In  1824  it  was  taken  down 
and  rebuilt  in  1826  in  Rose  Street, 
near  Pearl. 


St.  George's    (Episcopal)   Church,  at  St-  George's 
Rutherford  Place  and  Sixteenth  Street, 


was  built  in  1845.  ^he  church  was  or 
ganized  in  1752,  and  before  occupying 
the  present  site  was  in  Beekman  Street. 

Early  in  the  century  a  stream  of 
water  ran  from  Stuyvesant's  Pond,  close 
by  what  is  now  Fourteenth  Street  and 
Second  Avenue,  to  First  Avenue  and 
Nineteenth  Street,  having  an  outlet  into 
the  East  River  at  about  Sixteenth 
Street.  In  winter  this  furnished  an  ex 
cellent  skating-ground. 

Gramercy    Park,  at    Twentieth    and      Gramercy 

Twenty-first     Streets     and     Lexington 

Avenue,    was     originally    part    of   the 

Gramercy  Farm.     In  1831  it  was  given 

i79 


Madison 
Square 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

by  Samuel  B.  Ruggles  to  be  used 
exclusively  by  the  owners  of  lots  front 
ing  on  it.  It  was  laid  out  and  im 
proved  in  1840.  In  the  pavement,  in 
front  of  the  park  gate  on  the  west  side, 
is  a  stone  bearing  this  inscription : 


GRAMERCY  PARK 

FOUNDED  BY 
SAMUEL  B.  RUGGLES 

1831 
COMMEMORATED  BY  THIS  TABLET 

IMBEDDED  IN 

THE   GRAMERCY    FARM   BY 
JOHN  RUGGLES  STRONG. 


i87S- 


There  was  no  evidence  during  the 
last  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  that 
the  town  would  ever  creep  up  to  and 
beyond  the  point  where  Twenty-third 
Street  crosses  Broadway.  This  point 
was  the  junction  of  the  Post  Road  to 
Boston  and  the  Bloomingdale  Road 
The  latter  was  the  fashionable  out-of- 


180 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

town  driveway,  and  it  followed  the 
course  that  Broadway  and  the  Boule 
vard  take  now.  The  Post  Road  ex 
tended  to  the  northeast.  At  this  point, 
in  1794,  a  Potter's  Field  was  established. 
There  were  many  complaints  at  its  be 
ing  located  there,  where  pauper  funerals 
clashed  with  the  vehicles  of  the  well-to- 
do,  and  there  was  much  rejoicing  three 
years  later,  when  the  burying-ground 
was  removed  to  the  spot  that  is  now 
Washington  Square. 

In    1797    was   built,  where  the  bury-  Arsenal  in 
ing-ground  had  been,  an  arsenal  which  Square 
extended    from    Twenty-fourth     Street 
and  over  the  site  of  the  Worth   Monu 
ment. 

In  the  City  Plan,  completed  in  1811, 
provision  was  made  for  a  parade-ground 
to  extend  from  Twenty-third  to  Thirty- 
fourth  Streets,  and  Seventh  to  Third 
Avenue.  The  Commissioners  decided 
that  such  a  space  was  needed  for  mili 
tary  exercises,  and  where,  in  case  of 

181 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

necessity,  there  could  be  assembled  a 
force  to  defend  the  city.  In  1814,  the 
limits  of  the  parade-ground  were  re 
duced  to  the  space  between  Twenty- 
third  and  Thirty-first  Streets,  Sixth  and 
Fourth  Avenues,  and  given  the  name 
of  Madison  Square. 

House  of         Tne  Arsenal  in  Madison  Square  was 

Refuge  .  * 

turned  into  a  House  of  Refuge  in  1824, 
and  opened  January  i,  1825.  This  was 
the  result  of  the  work  of  an  association 
of  citizens  who  formed  a  society  to  im 
prove  the  condition  of  juvenile  delin 
quents.  The  House  of  Refuge  was 
burned  in  1839,  and  another  institution 
built  at  the  foot  of  Twenty-third  Street 
the  same  year.  A  portion  of  the  old 
outer  wall  of  this  last  structure  is  still 
to  be  seen  on  the  north  side  of  Twenty- 
third  Street,  between  First  Avenue  and 
Avenue  A. 

In  1845,  at  the  suggestion  of  Mayor 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

James  Harper,  Madison  Square  was  re 
duced  to  its  present  limits  and  laid  out 
as  a  public  park.  Up  to  this  time  a 
stream  of  water  had  crossed  the  square, 
fed  by  springs  in  the  district  about  Sixth 
Avenue,  between  Twenty-first  and 
Twenty-seventh  Streets.  It  spread  out 
into  a  pond  in  Madison  Square,  and 
emptied  into  the  East  River  at  Seven 
teenth  Street.  It  was  suggested  that  a 
street  be  created  over  its  bed  from  Mad 
ison  Avenue  to  the  river.  This  was  not 
carried  out,  and  the  stream  was  simply 
buried. 

The  road  which  branched  out  of  the  Post  Road 
Bloomingdale  Road  at  Twenty-third 
Street,  sometimes  called  the  Boston  Post 
Road,  sometimes  the  Post  Road,  some 
times  the  Boston  Turnpike,  ran  across 
the  present  Madison  Square,  strik 
ing  Fourth  Avenue  at  Twenty-ninth 
Street;  went  through  Kipsborough  which 
hugged  the  river  between  Thirty-third 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

and  Thirty-seventh  Streets,  swept  past 
Turtle  Bay  at  Forty-seventh  Street  and 
the  East  River,  crossed  Second  Avenue 
at  Fifty-second  Street,  recrossed  at 
Sixty-third  Street,  reached  the  Third 
Avenue  line  at  Sixty-fifth  Street,  and  at 
Seventy-seventh  Street  crossed  a  small 
stream  over  the  Kissing  Bridge.  Then 
proceeded  irregularly  on  this  line  to  One 
Hundred  and  Thirtieth  Street,  where  it 
struck  the  bridge  over  the  Harlem  River 
at  Third  Avenue.  The  road  was  closed 
in  1839. 

The  monument  to  Major- General 
William  J.  Worth,  standing  to  the  west 
of  Madison  Square,  was  dedicated  No 
vember  25,  1857.  General  Worth  was 
the  main  support  of  General  Scott  in  the 
campaign  of  Mexico.  His  body  was 
first  interred  in  Greenwood  Cemetery. 
On  November  23 rd  the  remains  were 
taken  to  City  Hall,  where  they  lay  in 
state  for  two  days,  then  were  taken,  un- 
184 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

der  military  escort,  and  deposited  beside 
the  monument. 


For  twenty  years,  or  more,  prior  to 
1853,  the  site  of  the  present  Fifth  Ave-  Hotel 
nue  Hotel,  at  Twenty-third  Street  and 
Broadway,  was  occupied  by  a  frame  cot 
tage  with  a  peaked  roof,  and  covered 
veranda  reached  by  a  flight  of  wooden 
stairs.  This  was  the  inn  of  Corporal 
Thompson,and  a  favorite  stopping-place 
on  the  Bloomingdale  Road.  An  en 
closed  lot,  extending  as  far  as  the  present 
Twenty-fourth  Street,  was  used  at  certain 
times  of  the  year  for  cattle  exhibitions. 
In  1853  the  cottage  made  way  for  Fran- 
coni's  Hippodrome,a  brick  structure,  two 
stories  high,  enclosing  an  open  space  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  in  diam 
eter.  The  performances  given  here  were 
considered  of  great  merit  and  received 
with  much  favor.  In  1856  the  Hippo 
drome  was  removed,  and  in  1858  the 
present  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel  was  opened. 
185 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

The  Madison  Square  Presbyterian 
Church,  at  Madison  Avenue  and 
Twenty-fourth  Street,  was  commenced 
in  1853,  the  earlier  church  of  the  con 
gregation  having  been  in  Broome  Street. 
It  was  opened  December,  1854,  with 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Adams  as  pastor. 

College  of       At  the  southeast  corner  of  Twenty- 
New  York  third  Street  and  Lexington  Avenue,  the 

College  of  the  City  of 
New  York  has  stood  since 

^  1848,  the  opening  exer 

cises  having  taken  place 
in  1849.  In  1847  the 
Legislature  passed  an 
Act  authorizing  the  es 
tablishment  of  a  free  acad 
emy  for  the  benefit  of 
pupils  who  had  been  edu 
cated  in  the  public  schools 
of  this  city.  The  name 
Free  Academy  was  given 
to  the  institution,  and  un- 

186 


College    of    <h< 

CITY'  of  NfiwYoiuc 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK. 

der  that  name  it  was  incorporated.  It  had 
the  power  to  confer  degrees  and  diplomas. 
In  1866  the  name  was  changed  to  its 
present  title,  and  all  the  privileges  and 
powers  of  a  college  were  conferred  upon 
it.  In  1882  the  college  was  thrown 
open  to  all  young  men,  whether  edu 
cated  in  the  public  schools  of  this  city 
or  not.  In  1898  ground  was  set  aside 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  city,  over 
looking  the  Hudson  River,  for  the 
erection  of  modern  buildings  suitable  to 
meet  the  growth  of  the  college. 

The   House  of  Refuge   in  Madison  old  House 

r  -i          r          -  °f  Refuge 

Square  was,  after  the  fire  in  1839,  re~  Wall 
built  on  the  block  bounded  by  Twenty- 
third  and  Twenty-fourth  Streets,  First 
Avenue  and  the  East  River.  It  was 
surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  a  section  of 
which  is  still  standing  on  the  north  side 
of  Twenty-third  Street,  between  First 
Avenue  and  Avenue  A.  The  river  at 
that  time  extended  west  to  beyond  the 
187 


'  ,  K 


^^^^^^^^^gpT 
^^o^^i?I^i^^;'•^;;!-^•'^t•  x 

"^     ~~^^i~~J.'-JL~~^  --^js^:=r.  %  *&£?%•. 


I?    ,          »H  J     Mn    :  •••   "-T — •  — 

i^i  J^'^IBSia^ 
~  ---          ^»TA, 


Bellevue 
Hospital 


GATE  of 
Old  HotMb  of  REFUGE 


Avenue  A  line.  The  old  gateway  is 
there  yet,  and  is  used  now  as  the  en 
trance  to  a  coal-yard.  Some  of  the 
barred  windows  of  the  wall  can  still  be 
seen.  In  1854  the  inmates  were  re 
moved  to  Randall's  Island,  and  were 
placed  in  charge  of  the  State. 

Bellevue  Hospital  has  occupied  its 
present  site,  at  the  foot  of  East  Twenty- 
sixth  Street,  since  about  1810.  The 
hospital  really  had  its  beginning  in  1736, 

iSS 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

in  the  buildings  of  the  Public  Work 
house  and  House  of  Correction  in  City 
Hall  Park.  There  were  six  beds  there, 
in  charge  of  the  medical  officer,  Dr. 
John  Van  Beuren.  About  the  begin 
ning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  yellow 
fever  patients  were  sent  to  a  building 
known  as  Belle  Vue,  on  the  Belle  Vue 
Farm,  close  by  the  present  hospital 
buildings.  In  about  1810  it  was  de 
cided  to  establish  a  new  almshouse, 
penitentiary  and  hospital  on  the  Belle 
Vue  Farm.  Work  on  this  was  com 
pleted  in  1816.  The  almshouse  build 
ing  was  three  stones  high,  surmounted 
by  a  cupola,  and  having  a  north  and 
south  wing  each  one  hundred  feet  long. 
This  original  structure  stands  to-day, 
and  is  part  of  the  present  hospital  build 
ing,  other  branches  having  been  added 
to  it  from  time  to  time.  The  water 
line,  at  that  time,  was  within  half  a  block 
of  where  First  Avenue  is  now. 

In    1848   the   Almshouse   section   of 
189 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

the  institution  was  transferred  to  Black- 
weirs  Island.  The  ambulance  service 
was  started  in  1869,  and  was  the  first 
service  of  its  kind  in  the  world. 


Bull's  Head  Village  was  located  in 
Village  the  district  now  included  within  Twenty- 
third  and  Twenty-seventh  Streets, 
Fourth  and  Second  Avenues.  It  be 
came  a  centre  of  importance  in  1826, 
when  the  old  Bull's  Head  Tavern  was 
moved  from  its  early  home  on  the 
Bowery,  near  Bayard  Street,  to  the 
point  which  is  now  marked  by  Twenty- 
sixth  Street  and  Third  Avenue.  It 
continued  to  be  the  headquarters  of 
drovers  and  stockmen.  As  at  that  time 
there  was  no  bank  north  of  the  City 
Hall  Park,  the  Bull's  Head  Tavern 
served  as  inn,  bank  and  general  busi 
ness  emporium  for  the  locality.  For 
more  than  twenty  years  this  district  was 
the  great  cattle  market  of  the  city.  As 
business  increased,  stores  and  business 
190 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

houses  were  erected,  until,  toward  the 
year  1850,  the  cattle  mart,  which  was 
the  source  of  all  business,  was  crowded 
out,  It  was  moved  up-town  to  the 
neighborhood  of  Forty-second  Street ; 
later  to  Ninety-fourth  Street,  and  in  the 
early  8o's  to  the  Jersey  shore.  The 
most  celebrated  person  connected  with 
the  management  of  the  Bull's  Head 
Tavern  was  Daniel  Drew.  He  after 
wards  operated  in  Wall  Street,  became 
a  director  of  the  New  York  and  Erie 
Railroad  upon  its  completion  in  1851, 
and  accumulated  a  fortune  by  specula 
tion. 

At  Twenty-eighth  Street  and  Fourth  Peter 
Avenue,  on  the  southeast  corner,  the 
house  numbered  399-401,  stands  the 
old  "  Cooper  Mansion,"  in  which  Petei 
Cooper  lived.  It  was  formerly  on  the 
site  where  the  Bible  House  is  now,  at 
the  corner  of  Eighth  Street  and  Fourth 
Avenue.  Peter  Cooper  himself  super- 
191 


NOOKS      AND      CORNERS 

intended  the  removal  of  the  house  in 
1820,  and  directed  its  establishment  on 
the  new  site  so  that  it  should  be  recon 
structed  in  a  manner  that  should  abso 
lutely  preserve  its  original  form.  Now 
it  presents  an  insignificant  appearance 
crowded  about  by  modern  structures, 
and  it  is  occupied  by  a  restaurant. 

This  corner  of  Twenty-eighth  Street 
and  Fourth  Avenue  was  directly  on  the 
line  of  the  Boston  Post  Road.  Just  at 
that  point  the  Middle  Road  ran  from  it, 
and  extended  in  a  direct  line  to  Fifth 
Avenue  and  Forty-second  Street. 

The  Little  Church  Around  the  Cor 
ner,  a  low,  rambling  struc 
ture,    seemingly    all   angles 
and  corners,  is  on  the 
north  side  of  Twenty- 
ninth  Street,  mid 
way  of  the  block 
between  Fifth 
and    Madison 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 


Avenues.     It  is  the  Episcopal  Church  Llttle  Church 

c      ,  .  .  *  .  Around  the 

or  1  he  I  ransnguration.  Its  picturesque  Corner 
title  was  bestowed  upon  it  in  1871, 
when  Joseph  Holland,  an  English  actor, 
the  father  of  E.  M.  and  Joseph  Hol 
land,  the  players  known  to  the  present 
generation,  died.  Joseph  Jefferson, 
when  arranging  for  the  funeral,  went 
to  a  church  which  stood  then  at  Madi 
son  Avenue  and  Twenty-eighth  Street, 
to  arrange  for  the  services.  The  min 
ister  said  that  his  congregation  would 
object  to  an  actor  being  buried  from 
their  church,  adding  :  "  But  there  is  a 
little  church  around  the  corner  where 
they  have  such  funerals."  Mr.  Jeffer 
son,  astonished  that  such  petty  and  unjust 
distinctions  should  be  persisted  in  even 
in  the  face  of  death,  exclaimed  :  "  All 
honor  to  that  Little  Church  Around 
the  Corner  !  "  From  that  time  until  the 
present  day,  "  The  Little  Church 
Around  the  Corner"  has  been  the  re 
ligious  refuge  of  theatrical  folk.  For 

193 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

twenty-six  years  of  that  time,  and  until 
his  death,  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  H. 
Houghton,  who  conducted  the  services 
over  the  remains  of  actor  Holland,  was 
the  firm  friend  of  the  people  of  the  stage 
in  times  of  trouble,  of  sickness  and  of 
death. 
Lich  The  lich  gate  at  the  entrance  of  the 

Gate  ......  .  . 

church  is  unique  in  this  country,  and  is 
considered  the  most  elaborate  now  in 
existence  anywhere.  It  was  erected  in 
1895,  at  a  cost  of  $4,000. 

The  congregation  worshipped  first  in 
a  house  at  No.  48  East  Twenty-fourth 
Street,  in  1850.  The  present  building 
was  opened  in  1856.  Lester  Wallack 
was  buried  from  this  church,  as  were 
Dion  Boucicault,  Edwin  Booth, and  a  host 
of  others.  In  the  church  is  a  memorial 
window  to  the  memory  of  Edwin  Booth, 
which  was  unveiled  in  1898.  It  repre 
sents  a  mediaeval  histrionic  student,  his 
gaze  fixed  on  a  mask  in  his  hand.  Be 
low  the  figure  is  the  favorite  quotation 
194 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

of  Booth,  from  "  Henry  II":  "As  one, 
in  suffering  all,  that  suffers  nothing ;  a 
man  that  fortune's  buffets  and  rewards 
has  taken  with  equal  thanks."  And  the 
further  inscription  :  "  To  the  glory  of 
God  and  in  loving  memory  of  Edwin 
Booth  this  window  has  been  placed  here 
by  «  The  Players.' " 

At  Lexington  Avenue  and  Thirtieth 
Street  is  the  First  Moravian  Church, 
which  has  occupied  the  building  since 
1869.  This  congregation  was  estab 
lished  in  1749.  In  1751  their  first 
church  was  built  at  No.  108  Fair  (now 
Fulton)  Street.  In  1829  a  second  house 
was  erected  on  the  same  site.  In  1849 
a  new  building  was  erected  at  the  south 
west  corner  of  Houston  and  Mott 
Streets.  This  property  was  sold  in 
1865,  and  the  congregation  then  wor 
shipped  in  the  Medical  College  Hall, 
at  the  northwest  corner  of  Twenty-third 
Street  and  Fourth  Avenue,  until  the 
195 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

purchase  of  the  present  building  from 
the  Episcopalians.  It  was  erected  by 
the  Baptists  in  1825. 

Brick  At  Fifth  Avenue  and  Thirty-seventh 

Chuirch  l  Street  is  the  Brick  Presbyterian  Church, 
which  stood  at  the  junction  of  Park 
Row  and  Nassau  Street  until  1858, 
when  the  present  structure  was  erected. 
The  locality  was  a  very  different  one 
then,  and  the  square  quaintness  of  the 
church  looks  out  of  place  amid  its  pres 
ent  modern  surroundings.  There  is  an 
air  of  solitude  about  it,  as  though  it 
mourned  faithfully  for  the  green  fields 
that  shed  peace  and  quietness  about  its 
walls  when  it  was  first  built  there. 

It  is  related  of  William  C.  H.  Wad- 
dell,  who,  in  1 845,  built  a  residence  on 
the  same  site,  that  when  he  went  to  look 
at  the  plot,  with  a  view  to  purchase,  his 
wife  waited  for  him  near  by,  under  the 
shade  of  an  apple  tree.  The  ground 
there  was  high  above  the  city  grade. 
196 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

The  ground  between  Fifth  and  Sixth  Bl7ant 
Avenues,  Fortieth  and  Forty-second 
Streets,  now  occupied  by  Bryant  Park 
and  the  old  reservoir,  was  purchased  by 
the  city  in  1822,  and  in  1823  a  Potter's 
Field  was  established  there,  the  one  in 
Washington  Square  having  been  aban 
doned  in  its  favor.  The  reservoir,  of 
Egyptian  architecture,  was  finished  in 
1842.  Its  cost  was  about  $500,000. 
On  July  5th  water  was  introduced  into 
it  through  the  new  Croton  aqueduct, 
with  appropriate  ceremonies.  The  water 
is  brought  from  the  Croton  lakes,  forty- 
five  miles  above  the  city,  through  con 
duits  of  solid  masonry.  The  first  con 
duit,  which  was  begun  in  1835,  *s  carried 
across  the  Harlem  River  through  the 
High  Bridge,  which  was  erected  espe 
cially  to  accommodate  it.  At  the  time 
the  reservoir  was  put  in  use  the  locality 
was  at  the  northern  limits  of  the  city. 
On  Sundays  and  holidays  people  went 
on  journeys  to  the  reservoir,  and  from 
197 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

the  promenades  at  the  top  of  the  struc 
ture  had  a  good  view  from  river  to  river, 
and  of  the  city  to  the  south.  The  res 
ervoir  has  not  been  in  use  for  many 
years. 

The  park  was  called  Reservoir  Square 
until  1884,  when  the  name  was  changed 
to  Bryant  Park. 

AWorld's  On  July  4,  1853,  a  World's  Fair, 
in  imitation  of  the  Crystal  Palace,  near 
London,  was  opened  in  Reservoir 
Square,  when  President  Pierce  made 
an  address.  The  fair  was  intended  to 
set  forth  the  products  of  the  world,  but 
it  attracted  but  little  attention  outside 
the  city.  It  was  opened  as  a  permanent 
exposition  on  May  14,  1854,  but 
proved  a  failure.  One  of  the  attractions 
was  a  tower  280  feet  high,  which  stood 
just  north  of  the  present  line  of  Forty- 
second  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue.  In 
August,  1856,  it  was  burned,  and  as  a 
great  pillar  of  flame  it  attracted  more 
198 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

attention  than  ever  before.  The  expo 
sition  buildings  and  their  contents  were 
in  the  hands  of  a  receiver  when  they 
were  destroyed  by  fire  October  5, 
1858. 

Bryant  Park  has  been  selected  as  the 
site  for  the  future  home  of  the  consoli 
dated  Tilden,  Astor  and  Lenox  Libra 
ries. 

Murray  Hill  derives  its  name  from 
the  possessions  of  Robert  Murray, 
whose  house,Inclenberg,stoodat  the  cor 
ner  of  what  is  now  Thirty-sixth  Street 
and  Park  Avenue,  on  a  farm  which  lay 
between  the  present  Thirty-third  and 
Thirty-seventh  Streets,  Bloomingdale 
Road  (now  Broadway)  and  the  Boston 
Post  Road  (the  present  Third  Avenue). 
The  house  was  destroyed  by  fire  in 
1834.  On  September  15,  1776,  after 
the  defeat  on  Long  Island,  the  Ameri 
cans  were  marching  northward  from  the 
lower  end  of  the  island,  when  the  Brit- 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

ish,  marching  toward  the  west,  reached 
the  Murray  House.  There  the  officers 
were  well  entertained  by  the  Murrays, 
who,  at  the  same  time,  managed  to  get 
word  to  the  American  Army  :  the  latter 
hurried  on  and  joined  Washington  at 
about  Forty-third  Street  and  Broadway, 
before  the  English  suspected  that  they 
were  anywhere  within  reach. 

The  Murray  Farm  extended  down  to 
Kip's  Bay  at  Thirty-sixth  Street.  The 
Kip  mansion  was  the  oldest  house  on 
the  Island  of  Manhattan  when  it  was 
torn  down  in  1851.  Where  it  stood, 
at  the  crossing  of  Thirty-fifth  Street  and 
Second  Avenue,  there  is  now  not  a  trace. 
Jacob  Kip  built  the  house  in  1655,  of 
brick  which  he  imported  from  Holland. 
The  locality  between  the  Murray  Hill 
Farm  and  the  river,  that  is,  east  of  what  is 
now  Third  Avenue  between  Thirty-third 
and  Thirty-seventh  Streets,  was  called 
Kipsborough  in  Revolutionary  times. 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK. 

The  British  forces  landed,  on  the  day  Turtle 

.       Bay 

of  the  stop  at  the  Murray  House,  in 
Turtle  Bay,  that  portion  of  the  East 
River  between  Forty-sixth  and  Forty- 
seventh  Streets.  It  was  a  safe  harbor 
and  a  convenient  one.  Overlooking 
the  bay,  on  a  great  bluff  at  the  present 
Forty-first  Street,  was  the  summer 
home  of  Francis  Bayard  Winthrop. 
He  owned  the  Turtle  Bay  Farm.  The 
bluff  is  there  yet,  and  subsequent  cut 
ting  through  of  the  streets  has  left  it  in 
appearance  like  a  small  mountain  peak. 
Winthrop's  house  is  gone,  and  in  its 
place  is  Corcoran's  Roost,  far  up  on  the 
height,  whose  grim  wall  of  stone  on  the 
Fortieth  Street  side  at  First  Avenue 
became  in  modern  times  the  trysting- 
place  for  members  of  the  "  Rag  Gang." 

Forty-seventh       and        Forty-ninth  The  Elgin 
Streets,  between   Fifth   and   Sixth  Ave 
nues,  enclose  the   tract  formerly  known 
as    the     Elgin    Garden.       This    was  a 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

botanical  garden  founded  by  David 
Hosack,  M.  D.,  in  1 80 1,  when  he  was 
Professor  of  Botany  in  Columbia  Col 
lege.  In  1814  the  land  was  purchased 
by  the  State  from  Dr.  Hosack  and 
given  to  Columbia  College,  in  consider 
ation  of  lands  which  had  been  owned 
by  the  College  but  ceded  to  New 
Hampshire  after  the  settlement  of  the 
boundary  dispute.  The  ground  is  still 
owned  by  Columbia  University. 

The  block  east  of  Madison  Avenue, 
between  Forty-ninth  and  Fiftieth 
Streets,  was  occupied  in  1857  by  Co 
lumbia  College,  when  the  latter  moved 
from  its  down-town  site  at  Church  and 
Murray  Streets.  The  College  occupied 
the  building  which  had  been  erected  in 
1817  by  the  founders  of  the  Institute 
for  the  Instruction  of  the  Deaf  and 
Dumb — the  first  asylum  for  mutes  in 
the  United  States.  The  original  in 
tention  had  been  to  erect  the  college 

202 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

buildings  on  a  portion  of  the  Elgin 
Garden  property,  but  the  expense  in 
volved  was  found  to  be  too  great.  The 
asylum  property,  consisting  of  twenty 
lots  and  the  buildings,  was  purchased 
in  1856.  Subsequently  the  remainder 
of  the  block  was  also  bought  up. 

At  Fiftieth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue  St-  Patrick's 

n       ™       •    i  »       /^     i      j      i      L  Cathedral 

is  St.  Patrick  s  Cathedral,  the  corner 
stone  of  which  was  laid  in  1858.  The 
entire  block  on  which  it  stands  was,  the 
preceding  year,  given  to  the  Roman 
Catholics  for  a  nominal  sum — one  dol 
lar — by  the  city. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Orphan  Asy 
lum  in  the  adjoining  block,  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  between  Fifty-first  and  Fifty- 
second  Streets,  was  organized  in  1825, 
but  not  incorporated  until  1852,  when 
the  present  buildings  were  erected. 

There    is    still    standing,    in    Third 

203 


Stone 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Four  Mile  Avenue,  just  above  Fifty-seventh  Street, 
a  milestone.  It  was  once  on  the  Post 
Road,  four  miles  from  Federal  Hall  in 
Wall  Street. 


Close  by    Fiftieth    Street  and  Third 
Avenue,    a    Potter's    Field    was    estab 
lished  about  1835.     Near  it  was  a 
spring  of  exceptionally  pure  water. 
This  water  was  carried  away  in  carts 
and  supplied  to  the    city.      Even 
after    the    introduction  of  Croton 
water   the   water  from  this  spring 
commanded  a  price  of  two  cents  a 
pail  from  many  who  were  strongly 
prejudiced   against  water  that  had 
been     supplied 
through  pipes. 


Memories  of 
Nathan  Hale, 
the  Martyr  Spy 
of  the  Revo 
lution,  hover 


3r-d  Ave 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

about  the  neighborhood  of  Fifty-first  Bcekman 
Street  and  First  Avenue.  The  Beek- 
man  House  stood  just  west  of  the 
Avenue,  between  Fifty-first  and  Fifty- 
second  Streets,  on  the  site  where  Gram 
mar  School  No.  135  is  now.  It  was  in  a 
room  of  this  house  that  Major  Andre 
slept,  and  in  the  morning  passed  out  to 
dishonor  ;  and  it  was  in  a  greenhouse 
on  these  grounds  that  Nathan  Hale 
passed  the  last  of  his  nights  upon  earth. 
The  house  was  built  in  1763  by  a  de 
scendant  of  the  William  Beekman  who 
came  from  Holland  in  1 647  with  Peter 
Stuyvesant.  During  the  Revolution  it 
was  the  headquarters  of  General  Charles 
Clinton  and  Sir  William  Howe.  It 
stood  until  1874,  by  which  time  it  had 
degenerated  into  a  crumbling  tenement, 
and  was  demolished  when  it  threatened 
to  fall  of  natural  decay. 

A   very     few    steps    from    the    East 
River,  at   Fifty-third   Street,  stands   an 

205 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

An  old  old  brick  shot  tower ;  a  lonely  and 
Tower  neglected  sentinel  now,  but  still  proudly 
looking  skyward  and  bearing  witness 
to  its  former  usefulness.  It  was 
built  in  1821  by  a  Mr.  Youle.  On 
October  9th  it  was  nearing  completion 
when  it  collapsed.  It  was  at  once  re 
built,  and,  as  has  been  said,  still  stands. 
In  1827  Mr.  Youle  advertised  the  sale 
of  the  lots  near  the  tower,  and  desig 
nated  the  location  as  being  "  close  by 
the  Old  Post  Road  near  the  four  mile 
stone." 

Within  half  a  dozen  steps  of  the  old 
tower,  in  the  same  lumber  yard,  is  a 
house  said  to  be  the  oldest  in  the  city. 
It  is  of  Dutch  architecture,  with  sloping 
roof  and  a  wide  porch.  The  cutting 
through  and  grading  of  Fifty-third 
Street  have  forced  it  higher  above  the 
ground  than  its  builders  intended  it  to 
be.  The  outer  walls,  in  part,  have 
been  boarded  over,  and  some  "  modern 
improvements  "  have  made  it  somewhat 
206 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

unsightly ;  but  inside,  no  vandal's  art 
has  been  sufficient  to  hide  its  solid  oak 
beams  and  its  stone  foundations  that 
have  withstood  the  shocks  of  time 
successfully.  It  was  a  farm-house,  and 
its  site  was  the  Spring  Valley  Farm  of 
the  Revolution.  It  is  thought  to  have 
been  built  by  some  member  of  the  De  The 
Voor  family,  who,  after  1677,  had  a  Farm 
grant  of  sixty  acres  of  land  along  the 
river,  and  gave  their  name  to  a  mill- 

y  o 

stream   long  since    forgotten,    save   for 
allusion  in  the  pages  of  history. 

A  block  away  in  Fifty-fourth  Street, 
between  First  Avenue  and  the  river, 
is  another  Dutch  house,  though  doubt 
less  of  much  later  origin.  It  stands 
back  from  the  street  and  has  become 
part  of  a  brewery,  being  literally  sur 
rounded  by  buildings. 

The    first    suggestion    of  a    Central  Central 
Park  was  made  in  the  fall  of  1850,  when 
Andrew    J.    Downing,    writing    to    the 

207 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

Horticulturist,  advocated  the  establish 
ment  of  a  large  park  because  of  the  lack 
of  recreation-grounds  in  the  city.  On 
April  5,  1851,  Mayor  Ambrose  C. 
Kingsland,  in  a  special  message  to  the 
Common  Council,  suggested  the  neces 
sity  for  the  new  park,  pointing  out  the 
limited  extent  and  inadequacy  of  the  ex 
isting  ones.  The  Common  Council, 
approving  of  the  idea,  asked  the  Leg 
islature  for  authority  to  secure  the 
necessary  land.  The  ground  suggested 
for  the  new  park  was  the  property 
known  as  "  Jones'  Woods,"  which 
lay  between  Sixty-sixth  and  Seventy- 
fifth  Streets,  Third  Avenue  and  the 
East  River.  At  an  extra  session  of 
the  Legislature  in  July,  1851,  an  Act 
known  as  the  "  Jones'  Woods  Park 
Bill  "  was  passed,  under  which  the  city 
was  given  the  right  to  acquire  the  land. 
The  passage  of  this  Act  opened  a  dis 
cussion  as  to  whether  there  was  no  other 
location  better  adapted  for  a  public  park 
208 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

than  Jones'  Woods.  In  August  a  com 
mittee  was  appointed  by  the  Board  of 
Aldermen  to  examine  the  proposed  plot 
and  others.  This  committee  reported 
in  favor  of  what  they  considered  a  more 
central  site,  namely,  the  ground  lying 
between  Fifty-ninth  and  One  Hundred 
and  Sixth  Streets,  Fifth  and  Eighth 
Avenues.  On  July  23,  1853,  the 
Legislature  passed  an  Act  giving  au 
thority  for  the  acquirement  of  the  land, 
afterward  occupied  by  Central  Park, 
to  Commissioners  appointed  by  the 
Supreme  Court.  The  previous  Jones' 
Woods  Act  was  repealed.  These  Com 
missioners  awarded  for  damages  $5,169,- 
369.69,  and  for  benefits  $1,657,- 
590.00,  which  report  was  confirmed  by 
the  court  in  February,  1856. 

In  May,  1856,  the  Common  Council 
appointed  a  commission  which  took 
charge  of  the  work  of  construction. 
On  this  commission  were  William 
C.  Bryant,  Washington  Irving  and 
209 


NOOKS     AND      CORNERS 

George  Bancroft.  In  1857,  however, 
a  new  Board  was  appointed  by  the  Leg 
islature,  because  of  the  inactivity  of  the 
first  one.  Under  the  new  Board,  in 
April  of  the  year  in  which  they  were 
appointed,  the  designs  of  Calvert  Vaux 
and  Frederick  L.  Olmsted  were  ac 
cepted  and  actual  work  was  begun. 

The  plans  for  the  improvement  of 
the  park,  which  have  been  consistently 
adhered  to,  were  based  upon  the  natural 
configuration  of  the  land.  As  nearly  as 
possible  the  hills,  valleys  and  streams 
were  preserved  undisturbed.  Trees, 
shrubs  and  vines  were  arranged  with 
a  view  to  an  harmonious  blending  of 
size,  shape  and  color — all  that  would 
attract  the  eye  and  make  the  park  as 
beautiful  in  every  detail  as  in  its  en 
tirety. 

The  year  1857  was  one  of  much  dis 
tress  to  the  poor,  and  work  on  the 
park  being  well  under  way,  the  Com 
mon  Council  created  employment  for 


OF     OLD      NEW     YORK 

many  laborers  by  putting  them  to  work 
grading  the  new  park. 

The  original  limits  were  extended 
from  One  Hundred  and  Sixth  to  One 
Hundred  and  Tenth  Street  in  1859. 

As  it  exists  to-day,  Central  Park  con 
tains  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two  acres, 
of  which  one  hundred  and  eighty-five 
and  one-quarter  are  water.  It  is  two  and 
a  half  miles  long  and  half  a  mile  wide. 
Five  hundred  thousand  trees  have  been 
set  out  since  the  acquisition  of  the  land. 
There  are  nine  miles  of  carriageway, 
five  and  a  half  miles  of  bridle-path, 
twenty-eight  and  one  half  miles  of  walk, 
thirty  buildings,  forty-eight  bridges, 
tunnels  and  archways,  and  out-of-door 
seats  for  ten  thousand  persons.  It  is  as 
sessed  at  $  8 7,000,000  and  worth  twice 
that  amount.  More  than  $i4,ooo,-ooo 
have  been  spent  on  improvements. 


-  «ja 


INDEX 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Abingdon,  Earl  of..  109,  125 

Abingdon  Road.  .  .  123,  124 

Ab'.ngdon  Square 109 

Academy  of  Music.  ...  178 

All  Saints'  Church.  ...  136 
Allen  Street  Memorial 

Church 142 

American  Museum.  ...  37 

Andre,  Major 205 

Aquarium,  Public 5 

Arsenal  in  Madison 

Square 182 

Art  Street 167 

Astor  House 78 

Astor,  John  Jacob  163,  172 

Astor  Library 170,  171 

Astor  Place 172 

Astor  Place  Opera 

House. .  .  .  1 68,  169,  170 

Astor,  William  B 172 


PAGE 

Bank  Coffee  House 146 

Bank  Street 113 

Banker  Street 134 

Bank  for  Savings,The.  38, 151 

Barnum,  P.  T 5,  30 

Barnum's  Museum.  ...  30 

Barrow  Street 1 08 

Battery 4 

Battery  Park 4 

Battery   Place 9 

Bayard  Family  Vault.  .  .  144 

Beaver  Lane 56 

Beaver's  Path 8 

Beaver   Street 8,  9,    10 

Bedford    Street    M.    E. 

Church 106 

Beekman  House 205 

Belle  Vue  Farm 189 

Bellevue  Hospital.  .188, 

189,  190 


215 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Bible  House 166,    191 

Bleecker  Street  Bank.  .    151 

Block,  Adrian 56,   57 

Bloomingdale  Road  1 24, 

128,  175,  1 80,    185,199 

Bond  Street 149 

Bone  Alley *39>    *4° 

Booth,  Edwin 194 


Boston  Post  Road . 


183, 
192, 


199 

....  183 
....  181 
....  46 
156, 
160,  161 


Boston  Turnpike 

Boulevard 

Bouwerie  Lane.  . 
Bouwerie  Village. 

157,  I58>  !59 

Bowery,  The 47 

Bowery  Lane 1 66,  175 

Bowery  Road 47, 

128,  163,  164 

Bowery  Theatre 49 

Bowery  Village  Church  162 

Bowling  Green 3,  55 

Bowling  Green  Garden.  84 

Bradford,  William 14 

Grave  of 63 

Brannan's  Garden 101 

Breese,  Sydney,  grave  of  62 

Brevoort,    Hendrick.  .  .  174 
Brick         Presbyterian 

Church 31,  196 

Bridewell 35 

Bridge  Street 9 

Broad  Street 8,    9,  10 


PAGE 

Broadway 12, 

55,  175,  180,  181 

Broadway  Theatre 97 

Brougham's  Lyceum.  ..  97 

Brouwer   Street 15 

Bryant   Park 114, 

197,  198,  199 

Bull's  Head  Tavern. 49,  190 
Bull's   Head  Village 

190,  191 

Bunker  Hill 144 

Burdell  Murder,The.  149, 1 50 

Burr,  Aaron, home  of.  1 8,  104 

Office  of. 40 

Last  Friend  of. ...  67 

Burton's  Theatre 39 

Cafe     des     Mille     Col- 

onnes 39,  86 

Canal  Street. 41,  42,  94,  95 

Canda,  Madam 171 

Castle  Garden 5,  178 

Cedar    Street 21 

Cemetery,    New     York 

City  Marble 154,  155 

Cemetery,    New     York 
Marble  .  .  151,    152, 

153,  154 

Central  Park 207, 

208,  209,  210,  211 

Chambers  Street 34 

Chambers  Street  Bank..  37 

Chanfrau,  Frank 170 


216 


I  N  D 

PAGE 

Chapel  Place  83 

E  X 

PAGE 

Church,  Madison  Square 

Chatham,  Earl  of.  18,47,      9° 
Chatham    Square.  .  .45,     46 
Chatham    Street  47 

Presbyterian..  .  .     1  86 
"    Mariners'.  ...  133,    134 
"    Dutch  Middle  Re 

Chelsea    Cottages  129 
Chelsea   Village..  .126, 
127,  128,    129 
Cherry  Hill                51,      52 

formed.  .21,  22,    171 
"    New  Jerusalem  ...      89 
"    Oliver  Street  Baptist   133 
"    St.   Ann's  167 

Cherry  Street                        51 

"    St.  George's.  ..  29,    179 

Church,  All  Saints'...    136 
"    Allen  Street  Mem 
orial  142 

"    St.    John's  91 
"   St.  Mark's  86, 
I  c6,  1  C7,  I  c8,    i  co 

"    Bedford  Street  Mem 
orial                        1  06 

"    St.  Mary's  137 
"    St.    Patrick's   144,    145 

"    Bowery  Village  .  .  .    162 
*'    Brick    Presbyterian 

"    St.     Patrick's    Ca 
thedral.  .            ..    2O7 

31,    196 
"    Dr.  Schroeder's.  .  .    167 
"    Duane  M   E              102 

"    St.  Paul's  75, 
76,  77,      78 
"    St.  Peter's                    81 

"    First    French    Hu- 
guenot  9 

"    Sea  and  Land,  of..    135 
"    Second       Street 

"    First  Moravian...    195 
"    First  Presbyterian.    154 
"    First  Reformed  Pres 
byterian          40,    1  1  8 

Methodist  156 
"    Spring  Street   Pres 
byterian   IO2 
'  '   Transfiguration     of 

"    Friends'       Meeting 
House  178 

the     (Episcopal) 

IQ2,    107,     IQ4,     IOC 

"    Grace  58,    175 
'  «   John  Street  ...  26, 
161,  162 
"    Little,  Around  the 
Corner.  .  ..192, 
193,  "94,    '95 
217 

*'    Transfiguration,    of 
the      (Catholic) 

44,     45 
"    Trinity.  .  .20,    56, 
58,  60,      61 
Church  Farm  59 

INDEX 


PAGE 

Churchyard,  St.  Paul's.  155 
"     Trinity.  .58,  59, 
60,  61,  62,  63, 
64,  65,  66,  67, 

68,69,70,71,  72 
Churcher,    Richard, 

Grave  of 61 

City  Hall 35 

City  Hall  (first)  Site  of, 

7,  8,  12 

City  Hall  in  Wall  Street,  1 7 
City  Hall  Park.  34,  35, 

36>  37,  38>  39 

City  Hospital 88,  89 

City  Hotel 73,  74 

City  Library 120 

City  Prison  in  City  Hall 

Park 35 

Clarke,  Capt.  Thomas.  127 

Cliff  Street 24 

Clinton,  Gen.  Charles..  205 

Clinton  Hall.  .28,  168,  169 

Coenties  Lane 13 

Coenties  Slip 12,  13 

Collect,  The 41 

College  of  the    City  of 

New  York 186,  187 

College  Place 83 

Collis,  Christopher, 

Tomb  of 77 

Colonnade  Row 172 

Columbia  College.  .81, 

82,  83,  202 


PAGE 

Commons,   The 34 

Company's  Farm 59 

Cooke,     George     Fred 
erick,  Grave  of.  .77,  78 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore, 

House  of 147 

Cooper  Mansion 191 

Cooper,  Peter.  164, 165,  166 

House  of.  ...  191,  192 

Statue  of 165 

Cooper  Union.  1 6 1, 1 64,  165 

Corcoran' s  Roost  ...     .  201 

Cornbury,  Lady 66 

Corlears  Hook  Park.  .  .  136 

Country  Market 75 

Coutant,    John,    House 

of 1 6 1 

Cox,  Samuel  S.,  Statue 

of 1 68 

Cresap,    Michael,  Grave 

of 70 

Croton   Water  Celebra 
tion 177,  197 

Cryptograph   in   Trinity 
Churchyard. .  .  64,  65,   66 

Crystal  Palace 198 

Custom  House 1 6,  1 8 

Cuyler's  Alley 15 

Debtors'  Prison.  .  .  .  34,  35 

Delacroix 163 

De  Lancey,  Etienne.  10, 

72,  73,  74 


218 


] 

[  N  D 

E  X 

I 

AGE 

PAGE 

De  Lancey,  James.  .72, 

First  Moravian  Church..    195 

73,  '43, 

144 

First  Presbyterian 

De  Lancey,  Susannah  .  . 

IOO 

Church  154 

Delmonico's  16, 

25 

First  Prison  Labor  no 

De  Voor  House  

207 

First  Reformed    Presby 

Dickens,  Charles  

31 

terian  Church.  .  ..40,    118 

Drew,  Daniel  

191 

First  Savings  Bank.  ...      37 

Duane  M.  E.  Church.. 

102 

First  Sunday  School.  ...    161 

D  ultc*  s  Kflrm 

rq 

First  Tenement  House..    136 

Dutch  West  India  Com- 

j  y 

Fish,  Hamilton,  Park.  .    139 

2 

Fish  Market  75 

pany  

Fitzroy  Road  126,    128 

Eacker,   George,    Grave 

Five  Points  42,      43 

of               

78 

Five    Points    House    of 

East  River  Bridge  (sec- 

Industry  44 

or<i)                 

137 

"Flat  and  Barrack  Hill"      1  6 

Fly  Market          23 

Eleventh  Street  

J74 

Elgin  Garden.  20  1,  202, 

203 

Forrest,  Edwin.  .  ..168,    169 

Eliot  Estate 

172 

Forrest-Macready  Riots. 

Emmet,  Thomas  Addis 

168,  169,    170 

77, 

'55 

Fort  Amsterdam.  .  .  .  I,        2 

i 

Fort  Clinton                            4 

Essex  Market  

*43 

•       A/r    I 

•7  C 

Fort  George  2 

Exterior  JVlarlcet  

/  3 

Fort  James  2 

Fayette  Street  

133 

Fort  Manhattan  2 

Federal  Hall  17, 

18 

Fountain     in     Union 

Fields    The          

34 

Square  177 

Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  .  .  . 

185 

Franconi's  Hippodrome.    185 

Fire  of  1835  

14 

Franklin   House  50 

.              „               U       IU 

Franklin   Square                    5  1 

rirst   rrencn    .Huguenot 

Church 

0 

Fraunces'  Tavern..  .10,      II 

First  Graveyard  

y 

56 

Free  Academy.  .  .  .186,    187 

First  House  Built  

56 

Fresh  Water  Pond  41 

219 


Friends'  Meeting  House 
Fulton  Street 

Garden,  Bowling  Green. 
"  Brannan's  .... 

"  Castle 5, 

"  Elgin.  20 1, 202, 
"  Niblo's.  ..146, 

"  Ranelagh 

11  Vauxhall  (first) 
84, 

"       Vauxhall    (last) 

163,  164, 

"       Winter 

Garden  Street 

Gardner,  Noah no, 

General  Theological 
Seminary..  126,  127, 

George  III,  Statue  of.. 

3> 

Gold  Street 

Golden  Hill 

Golden  Hill,  Battle  of. . 
Golden  Hill  Inn.  .  ..24, 
Government  House.  .  I, 
Governor's  Room,  City 

Hall 

Grace  Church 58, 

Gramercy  Park 

Graveyard,  Jewish .  .  50, 

116,  117,  122, 

"     Paupers'.  34, 1 1 4, 

115,  181,   197, 


INDEX 

PAGE  PAGE 

178  Graveyard,  St.  John's.. .  105 

20  "     St.  Paul's 155 

"     Trinity..  59,  60, 

84  61,62,63,64, 

101  65,     66,     67,     68 

178  "     New  York   City 
203  Marble.  ..154,    155 

147  "     New  York  Mar- 
94  ble..i5i,  152, 

163        Great  Bouwerie 157 

Great  Kiln  Road..u8, 

170                                121,  122,  125 

148  Great  Queen  Street ....  12 
1 6        Greenwich  Avenue.  ...  116 

III  "          Lane.  .116,    166 

"          Road...  80,      8 1 

129  "          Street  .  .80,      81 

Village.  98, 
19  99,  100,    101 

23  Grove  Street 108 

24  Hale,  Nathan.  38,  135,   204 

25  Hall  of  Records 34 

2        Hamilton,      Alexander, 

Grave  of 66 

36        Hamilton,       Alexander, 

175            Home  of 1 8 

179  Hamilton,  Philip 67 

Haunted  House.  ..165,  166 

123        Holland,  Joseph 193 

Holt's  Hotel 21 

204        Hone,  Philip 159 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Horse  and  Cart  Street.  .  26 

Hosack   Botanical  Gar 
den 82 

Hosack,  David 202 

Hotel,  Astor 78 

"      City 73,  74 

"      Fifth  Avenue  .  .  185 

"      Holt's 21 

"      Metropolitan.  .  .  147 
"      Riley's     Fifth 

Ward 89,  90 

"      St.  Nicholas 145 

"      Tremont 149 

"      United  States.  ..  20 

Houghton,     Rev.     Dr. 

George  H 1 94 

House  of  Aaron  Burr.  . 

1 8,  104 

House,  First,   of  White 

Men 56 

House  of   James    Feni- 

more  Cooper 147 

House  of  Peter  Cooper. 

191,  192 

House  of  John  Coutant .  1 6 1 

House  of  the   De  Lan- 

ceys 10,  72,  73,  74 

House     o  f     Alexander 

Hamilton 18 

House  of  Thomas  Paine 

107,  108 

House       of      President 

Monroe 145 


PAGE 

House  of  Refuge 182 

House      o  f      Charlotte 

Temple 48,    167 

House  of  Francis    Bay 
ard  Winthrop 201 

Houston  Street 150 

Howe,  Sir  William. .  .  .    205 
Huguenot  Memorials  in 
Trinity  Churchyard.. 

69,      71 

Inclenberg 199 

Institution   for   the    In 
struction  of  the  Deaf 

and  Dumb 202 

Island  of  Manhattan ...    138 

"Jack-knife,"  The.  ..  23 

Jail  in  City  Hall  Park..  34 

James  Street 133 

Jans'  Farm 59,  60 

Jeanette  Park 13 

Jefferson,  Joseph 193 

Jewish  Graveyard  in 

New  Bowery 50 

Jewish  Graveyard  in 

Eleventh  Street.  1 1 6,  117 
Jewish  Graveyard  in 

Twenty-first  Street.  . 

117,    122,     123 

John  Street 26 

John  Street  Church .  26, 

161,   162 


INDEX 


PAGE 

John  Street  Theatre. ...      26 

Jones'  Woods 208 

Jumel,  Mme 40 

Keene,   Laura,   Theatre 

of 147 

King's  College 82 

King's  Farm 59 

Kip's  Bay 200 

Kip,  Jacob 200 

Kipsborough 183,  200 

Kissing  Bridge 47,  184 

Lawrence,  Capt.,  Grave 

of 68 

Lafarge  House 148 

Lafayette,  General  ....    172 

Lafayette  Place 167, 

170,  171,  172 
La  Grange  Terrace.  ...  172 
Leeson,  James,  Grave  of  64 
Leisler,  Jacob,  Where 

Hanged 31,      32 

Lich    Gate  of   Little 
Church    Around    the 

Corner 194 

Light  Guards 7 

Lind,  Jenny 5 

Lispenard's  Meadows.  . 

80,  93,  94,     95 
Little    Church    Around 

the  Corner 192, 

193,  194,    195 


PAGE 

Logan,  the  Friend  of  the 

White  Man 70 

London  Terrace 129 

Love  Lane..  1 2 1,  124, 

125,  126,  128 

Macneven,  William 

James 77,  155 

Macomb's  Mansion.. .  .  57 
Macready-Forrest  Riots. 

168,  169,  170 
Macready,     William 

Charles 1 68,  169 

Madison  Square.  .  .  182,  183 
Madison  Square   Presby 
terian  Church 1 86 

Madison  Street 134 

Maiden  Lane 13,  22 

Mandelbaum,    "Moth 
er" 141,  142 

Manetta  Brook 99 

Manetta  Creek.  .  .  113,  114 
Manhattan  Island.  137, 

138,  142 

Manhattan  Market.  ...  139 
Marble     Houses    on 

Broadway 148,  149 

Mariners'  Church.  133,  134 

Mariners'  Temple 133 

Market,  Country 75 

"       Essex 143 

"       Exterior 75 

"      Fish 75 


I  N 

PAGE 

Market,  Fly 23 

"       Manhattan.  .  .  139 

"       Meal 20 

"       Uptown 74 

"       Washington.  .  74 

Marketfield  Street 8 

Martyrs'  Monument... 

63,  64 

Masonic  Hall 87,  88 

Meal  Market 20 

Medical  College  Hall.  .  195 
Mercantile  Library.. 28, 

29,  170 

Merchants'  Exchange.  .  16 

Metropolitan  Hall 148 

Metropolitan  Hotel.  ...  147 
Middle  Dutch  Reformed 

Church 21,  22,  171 

Middle  Road 192 

Mile  Stone.  .  143,  178,  204 
Military     Prison    Win 
dow 41 

Milligan's  Lane.  ..  117,  118 

Minetta  Street. 99,  113,  114 
Monroe,    President 

James 145,  155 

Montgomery,    General.  76 

Monument  Lane.  .  1 15,  166 
Moore,  Bishop  Benjamin 

127,  128 

Moore,  Clement  C.  128,  129 

Morris  Street 56 

Morse,  Samuel  F.  B .  . .  5 


D  E  X 

PAGE 

Morton,  General  Jacob.  7,  37 

Morton,  John 6 

Mount  Pitt 137 

Mount  Pitt  Circus  ....  137 

Mulberry  Bend 43 

Murder  of  Dr.  Burdell. 

149,  150 
Murder  of  Mary  Rogers 

145,  146 

Murderers'  Row 97 

Murray  Family.  199, 200, 20 1 

Murray  Farm 200 

Murray  Hill 1 99,  200 

Nassau  Street.  17,  1 8,  21,  22 

Nean,  Elias,  Grave  of .  .  71 
Nean,  Susannah,   Grave 

of 71 

Negro  Insurrection ....  42 

New  Jerusalem  Church  .  89 
New  York  City  Marble 

Cemetery 154,  155 

New  York  Hospital.  88,  89 

New  York  Institute.  .  .  37 
New  York  Marble  Cem- 

etery.i5l,  152,  153,  154 
New    York  Society  Li 
brary 119,  120 

New  York  Theatre 170 

New  York  Theatre  and 
Metropolitan      Opera 

House 148 

Niblo's  Garden. .  . .  146,  147 


223 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Niblo's  Theatre 146 

Nicholas  William  Street  161 

North  Street 150,  151 

Obelisk  Lane 115 

' '  Old  Brewery  " 44 

Oldest  Grave  in  Trinity 

Churchyard 6 1 

Old  Guard 7 

Oliver  Street 133 

Oliver      Street     Baptist 

Church 133 

Orphan    Asylum,     Ro 
man  Catholic 203 

Olympic  Theatre. .  .96,  147 

Paine,   Thomas,   Home 

of. 107,  108 

Paisley  Place 122 

Palmo  Opera  House.  39,  87 

Parade-Ground 181 

Park,  Battery 4 

"       Bryant 114, 

197,  198,  199 

"       Central.  .  .  .207, 

208,  209,  210,  211 

"       City  Hall  ...  34, 

35,  36,  37,  38>  39 

"       Corlears  Hook .  .  136 

"       Gramercy 179 

'*       Hamilton  Fish.  .  139 

**      Jeanette 13 

*<      St.  John's. .  .91,  92 


PAGE 

Park  Row 47 

Park  Theatre  (first).  ...  30 

Patti,  Adelina 148 

Payne,  John  Howard.  .  36 
Pauper  Graveyard... 34, 

114,  115,  181,   197,  204 

Pearl  Street 9,  n, 

I*,  13,      '4 

Peck  Slip 1 2 

Petticoat  Lane 8,        9 

Pie  Woman's  Lane  ...      22 
Pitt,  William,  Statue  of, 

18,  47,      90 

Platt  Street 23 

Poelnitz,  "  Baron  "...    173 
Poor  House  in  City  Hall 

Park 34 

Post  Office 21,     33 

Post  Road.. .  .47,  124, 

125,  180,  181,  182,   204 
Potter's    Field,     Bryant 

Park 114,    197 

Potter's  Field,  City  Hall 

Park..  ...      34 

Potter's   Field,  Madison 

Square 181 

Potter's     Field,     Third 

Avenue 204 

Potter's    Field,    Wash 
ington  Square  ...114,    115 
Printing-Press,    First  in 

Colony 13 

Prison  Manufactures.  ..    no 


224 


I  N  D 

PAGE 

Prison  Riots MI 

Prison,  State 109, 

IIO,    III,     I  12 


Queen's  Farm 59, 


Si 


Rachel,  the   Actress.  .  .  148 

"  Rag  Gang" 201 

Randall,  Robert  Richard 

i?3.  '74 

Ranelagh  Garden 94 

Red  Fort 92 

Reservoir  Square 198 

Revolutionary  House  .  .  79 
Revolutionary       War, 

First  Blood  of 24 

Richmond  Hill.  .  .  103, 

104,  105 

Ri ley's  Fifth  Ward  Ho 
tel 89,  90 

Road,  Abingdon 123 

"       Boston  Post 

183,  192,  199 

"       Bowery 47, 

128,  163,  164 

"       Fitzroy.  .  .  .126,  128 
"       Great  Kiln.n8, 

121,  122 

"       Greenwich.  .80,  81 

"       Middle 192 

<•       Post.  47,  124,  125, 

1 80,  181,  182,  204 

"       Skinner 117 


E  X 

PAGE 

Road,  Southampton.  .  . 

117,  I2O,     125 

"       Union  .....  117, 

118,  1  19,    120 
"       Warren  ........    126 

Rogers,    Mary,    Murder 


of. 


145, 


Rotunda    in    City    Hall 

Park 37 

Ruggles,  Samuel  B.  .  .  .  1 80 
Rutgers,  Anthony.  .92, 

93,  94 

Rutgers,  Col.  Henry  .  .  135 

Rutgers  Farm 135 

Sailors'  Snug   Harbor.  . 

173,  174 

St.  Ann's  Church  ....  167 

St.  Gaudens,  Augustus.  165 

St.  George's  Church. 29,  179 

St.  George  Square  ....  51 

St.  James  Street 133 

St.      John's      Burying- 

Ground 105 

St.  John's  Church  ....  91 

St.  John's  Park.  .  ..91,  92 
St.  Mark's  Church..  8  6, 

156,  158,  159 

St.  Mary's  Church.  ...  137 

St.  Nicholas  Hotel.  ...  145 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral .  203 
St-  Patrick's  Church.  . 

144,  145 


225 


INDEX 


PAGE 

St.  Paul's  Chapel.  ..75, 

?6,  77,  78 

St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  155 

St.  Peter's  Church 81 

Savings  Bank,  the  First.  37 

Schroeder,  Rev.  Dr....  167 

Scudder's  Museum.  ...  37 
Second    East    River 

Bridge 137 

Second  Street  Methodist 

Church 156 

Sewing     Machine    Ex 
hibited 87 

S  hakespeare  Tavern  .27,  28 
Shearith    Israel    Grave 
yard  50,  1 1 6,  122 

Sheep  Pasture 8 

Shot  Tower 206 

Shipyards 134 

Skinner  Road 117 

Smit's  V'lei 22 

Southampton,  Baron. .  . 

109,  122 

Southampton  Road .... 

117,  120,  125 

Sperry,  John 163 

Spring     Street     Presby 
terian  Church 1 02 

Spring  Valley  Farm. .  . .  207 

Stadhuis  Site 7 

Stadt  Huys 12,  15 

State  Prison 109, 

IIO,    III,  112 


PAGE 

State  Street 5,  6 

Stewart,  Alexander  T  . . 

85,  86,  159 

Stewart  Mansion 86 

Stone  Street 15 

Stuyvesant's  Creek.  ...  142 

Stuyvesant's  Pear  Tree.  160 
Stuyvesant,  Peter.  .  .  1 6, 

!56»  >57,  !58,  '59»  l6° 

Stuyvesant's  Pond 179 

Stuyvesant  Street 167 

Sub-Treasury  Building. .  18 

"Suicide  Slip" 95 

Sunday  School,  the  First  161 

Tammany  Hall.  .  .  .32,  33 

Tattersall's 95,  96 

Tea  Water  Pump 48 

Temple,  Charlotte, 

Tomb  of. 62,  63 

Temple,  Charlotte, 

Home  of 48,  167 

Tenement    House,     the 

First 136 

Ten  Eyck,  Conraet. ...  13 

Tompkins,  Daniel  D.  .  159 

Thames  Street 72 

Theatre  Alley 31 

Theatre,     Academy    of 

Music 178 

"       Astor        Place 
Opera  House 

1 68,  169,  170 


226 


N  D  E  X 


PAGE 

Theatre,  Bowery 49 

"        Broadway.  ...  97 

"        Brougham's.  .  97 

"        Burton's 39 

"        Laura  Keene's  147 

"       John  Street  .  .  26 
"        Metropolitan 

Hall 148 

"       New  York.  ..  170 
"       New     York 
Theatre    and 
Metropolitan 

Opera  House  148 

"       Niblo's 146 

"       Olympic.  ..96,  147 

"        Palmo's  .  .39,  87 

"        Park 30 

"       Tripler  Hall..  148 
"       Wallack's.97,  176 
"       Winter  Garden  148 
Thompson's  Inn,   Cor 
poral 185 

Thorne,  Charles  R 1 70 

Tilden,  Astor  and  Lenox 

Libraries 199 

Tin  Pot  Alley 57,  58 

Tombs 41 

Tompkins  Blues 7 

Tontine  Coffee  House . .  19 

Tontine  Society 19 

Tremont  House 149 

Trinity  Church ....  20, 

56,  58,  60,  61 


PAGE 

Trinity  Churchyard .... 
58,  59,  60,  61,  62, 
63,  64,  65,  66,  67, 
68,  69,  70,  71,  72 

Tripler  Hall 148 

Turtle  Bay !^4,    201 

Turtle  Bay  Farm 201 

Twenty-first  Street 124 

Union   Place 177 

Union  Road 1 1 7, 

118,  119,  120 

Union  Square  ....  175,  177 
United  New  Netherland 

Company 2 

United  States  Hotel.  .  .  20 

Uptown  Market 74 

Van      Hoboken,     Her- 

manus 157 

Vauxhall  Garden  (first) 

84,    163 
Vauxhall  Garden   (last) 

163,  164,    170 
Virgin's  Path 22 

Wall,  City's 16 

Wall    Street 9,  13, 

16,  17,  19,  20 

Wall  Street,  Trees  in .  .  20 

Wallack,  James  W  ...  176 

Wallack's  Lyceum.. 97,  176 

Warren,  Ann 109 


227 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Warren,   Charlotte....  109 

Warren  Road 126 

Warren,  Sir  Peter 

100,  108,  109,  124 
Warren,  Susannah.  .  .  .  109 
Washington  Inaugurated  1 7 
Washington     Inaugura 
tion  Ball 73 

Washington's  Broadway 

Home 57 

Washington  Hall 85 

Washington's  Headquar 
ters  II 

Washington's  Headquar 
ters  at  Richmond  Hill  104 
Washington's  Home  in 

Franklin   House.  ...  50 
Washington's    Pew    in 

St.  Paul's  Chapel.  .  .  76 

Washington  Market.  .  .  74 
Washington    Statue    in 

Union  Square 177 

Washington  Tablet.  3 7,  90 


PAGE 

Washington  Square.  .  .. 
113,  115,  172,  181,   197 

Water  Tank 176 

Weavers'  Row 122 

Well  in  Broadway 149 

Well  in  Rivington  Street  141 
Well  of  William  Cox .  .  13 

West  Broadway 83 

West's  Circus 95 

West  India  Co. 2 

Whitehall  Street 8 

Wiehawken  Street.  ...    112 

William  Street 1 6 

Window     of     Military 

Prison 40 

Winter  Garden 148 

Winthrop,  Francis  Bay 
ard  20 1 

Wolfe,  Gen.,  Statue  of.  115 
World's  Fair  Grounds..  198 
Worth  Monument.  .  .  . 

184,    185 
Wreck  Brook 41 


228 


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